• DDO: Dave W and I did Legendary Slavers p1 at R3. We have a pretty good rhythm where I send Teal (level 30 raptor) at the bad guys to get aggravation. Then I heal him twice (need to anticipate and start casting before he's taking damage because he'll die fast). That gives Dave W enough time to get in there and start hitting bad guys with his dagger that turns people into gold for a few seconds (it's like Constitution DC 100 so hard to resist for bad guys). Then I can start attacking and hopefully don't get aggro.

• No Nemo stream today. I went on Discord and hung out with three of the STFC leaders in my alliance. They talk a lot about random stuff and I mostly listened. Was nice.
• Watched Monaco Grand Prix. Lots of stuff happening but I guess not really racing. I read in a book that Monaco is a track where it's hard to pass and yeah that seemed true. Not sure there was any passing but several crashes, lots of penalties, and one race stop kept things eventful.

• Visited Lima. Started MBP Intel net boot. Taking too long so left it there and will come back tomorrow.
• Trader Joe's for stuff to make nachos cause I have a hankering.
• Chips, 2 oz ($0.50) + Refried Beans 1/2 can ($0.60) + Sliced Black Olives 1/2 can ($0.90) + Shredded Sharp Cheddar 1 oz ($0.33) + Pico de Gallo Salsa, Spicy, 1/4 ($0.75) = $3.08 for a single serving of nachos, enough for a small lunch. Tasted pretty good.

• Nemo streamed from Japan so I got to sleep late.
• Visited Lima. MBP stuck trying to download recovery image. Bringing it back home and will try net install again.
• Actually I can try recovering from Time Machine image. I think I still have it backed up but I was thinking the old install was the problem so restoring wouldn't fix it.
• Restore From Time Machine Backup doesn't find any macOS installs in my backups. Maybe it's because the Restore app is from macOS 10.15 (that's the OS it wants to install when I do Reinstall macOS) and doesn't recognize Time Machine backups with macOS 12 and 26.
• "Time Machine Backup not found - File extension is .backupbundle instead of .sparsebundle" identifies that changing the file extension would allow restore app to see the backups but restore would still fail partway.
• "How to reinstall macOS" mentions restarting with Option-Command-R or Shift-Option-Command-R to get a different version of the macOS installer.

• MBP Intel: Shift-Option-Command-R (boot Internet Recovery with macOS version that came with your Mac) stalled booting overnight. Option-Command-R (boot with latest supported Internet Recovery) started up and allowed me to try to install macOS 26 (Tahoe) which failed to install -- started to install and then a few minutes later MBP shut down. I give up and it's time to recycle that machine.

• GURPS Ring of Fire BackerKit, also has GURPS 4E Revised. Both for $120 hardcover and PDF.

• I seem to be hitting a limitation with Wiki.js + Safari. As my X1 map diagram gets more and more detailed it got to the point that Safari won't load Wiki.js edit page. Works great on Chrome but I try to avoid using Chrome.
• Dave S was around so we played Gloomhaven

macOS 27 Golden Gate

Liquid Glass
- rendering refinements when background is complex
- setting slider to adjust opacity
- sidebar has color for active app so easier to tell
- icons have more layers
- focus on UI performance

iOS 27 suports down to iPhone 11 (including my iPhone SE 3rd gen)

Search: rebuilt foundation for Spotlight, Photos, Mail
- more comprehensive indexing (with rankings in Mail)

Photos: share albums with Android friends and they can contribute too

Child Safety
============

- 1. every child is unique and parents know what's best for their family
- 2. based on expert health research
- kids 14-18: age-based protections guided by adult supervision
- kids under 13: access should be limited

American Academy of Pediatrics - Family Media Plan

Child Accounts
- existing accounts can be converted to Child Account
- Setup Assistant to help parents
- Ask to Buy - existing way for parents to approve App Store downloads
- Ask to Browse Website - new feature
- Ask to Approve - for people who kid can interact with
- Communication Safety - detects nudity and gore
- Screen Time statistics. Parents can immediately pause use of an app
- Time Allowances - time for Entertainment, Games, Social Media categories
- Schedule apps based on time of day, schedule Time Allowances

Developer Tools and APIs
- Sensitive Content Analysis
- PermissionKit
- Declared Age Range API

Apple Intelligence
==================

Architecture
- Apple Foundation Models: run on device or on server with Apple Private Compute
- v2 of on-device model for latest Apple Silicon
++ iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, iPad M4 with 12 GB memory, Mac M3 with 12 GB memory
- Personal context understanding
- App actions: AI execute actions on an app
- On-screen awareness
++ tailor responses to app you're using
++ ask about something shown on-screen
- Image understanding
- Privacy First: on-device processing + Private Cloud Compute

Siri AI
- More conversational during multiple queries
- Dedicated Siri app to go back to conversations and continue them
- Brand new voice experience, sounds more natural, adjust pace and expressivity
- macOS: Siri AI context menu action

Siri App
- view conversations
- continue conversation as you switch devices
- iCloud sync, private

Siri mode in camera - point camera at something and ask Siri

Visual Intelligence - info/actions based on photo shown or on Mac based on selection

Safari - uses Apple Intelligence to organize tabs by topic
- Notify Me: Safari can monitor a page and wait for specific change
- Describe an Extension: Safari can create extensions just for you
- Automatically Fix Passwords: Safari will update weak/compromised PWs on web sites

Other Apps
- Home app summarizes multiple notifications
- Home app create descriptions from various cameras
- Shortcuts: describe a shortcut and it will assemble it for you
- Image Playground - more capabilities and Image Playground API for devs

Photos App
- Clean Up Tool upgrade
- Extend Tool to expand image (extends background so main subject is not cramped)
- Spatial Reframing
++ rotate subject and background adjusts as if you had moved camera
++ generative AI to fill in "extra" image

Apple Intelligence in English, more languages will be added quickly
iCloud+ subscription for Private Computing features

Siri AI Beta later this year. Initially not available in EU or China.

Core AI framework to use 3rd party AI models.

• D&D session 35: Christopher Jr did most of the driving today as the PCs explored an ancient museum of dead gods.
• Dinner at PF Chang's. I finally used that $50 gift card that one of the QA guys gave me maybe 10 or 15 years ago.
• DDO: We were researching Sentient Jewels and Filigrees. Ended up doing one quest, Horde of the Illithid Controller. Kind of neat in that you sneak around a bunch otherwise fighting the storm giants is quite rough.

• Noticed that my American Express High Yield Savings Account is currently 3.20% APY (effective interest for a year since it compounds monthly). It's actually lower than my Apple Savings APY of 3.49% In general I guess doesn't matter much and I do like to keep Apple Savings accruing only from Apple Card cash back and interest rate to see how high it eventually gets.

• ORCL is up to $248 (was briefly at $250) so I'm selling 200 shares and that's this year's income. I guess I put in my order after trading hours (ends 4 PM ET) so we'll see how it goes tomorrow morning. (Sold at $245 per for $49k)

• Answering a political survey. Which makes me wonder: at what point did the Republican Party turn from "we're the white hat good guys" to "we're anti-heroes -- laws don't matter as long as the end is good" to "we're villains masquerading as anti-heroes".

• C3+S Dinner. Delivery from Totoro Ramen. I tried to net boot my MBP Intel but it was taking too long. I guess I'll drop by Monday or Tuesday since they're on vacation and I can visit Lima.

• Picked up my new glasses. Long distance very nice. Short range is nice. Progressive hard to get used to. Always feels like the short range portion is way down the lenses. I got this for driving so we'll see on a long trip.
• Fletcher's for a super burrito (with carnitas) and super nachos (with shrimp). $44 with tip. But it is 4 meals worth so not too bad overall.

• DDO: We finished Illithid Invasion. I guess only the first quest is really tough. The second quest has an annoying end fight where you have to keep dodging energy balls coming from the walls.

• BBEdit 16 released. I have BBEdit 14 so it's a $40 upgrade. $30 for BBEdit 15 and recent-ish BBEdit 16 owners. $60 regular price. I upgraded to 14 back in Jan 2022 so it's been a while but it still works fine for me.

• DDO We started Illithid Invasion arc which we've never done. Pilgrims' Peril is an extreme challenge which tried at R5, R4, R3 and finally R1. That first battle is pretty tough. Stolen Power we did at R2 and that went well. That last fight reminded me of Resident Evil movie trying to avoid the lasers. Was expecting eventually it'd be a wall of green orbs you can't jump over or around.

• Canadian Grand Prix. Franco Colapinto came in 6th and Oliver Bearman came in 10th (neither scored in the Sprint). So now it's Bearman with 18 points and Colapinto with 15. 33 points would be just after 5th in the Constructors' standings.

• At this point looks like my Intel MBP is non-usable. The internal HD is wiped. I can start from recovery but installing macOS 12 fails. I can't install on an external HD because security won't boot to an external unless you go into the Startup Security Utility but that requires a login from an account on the internal HD and there are no logins there now. I might get it to install on a different network so maybe I'll try my brother's place.

• I'm still using the very old Banktivity 7 which is an Intel app and macOS will be removing support for Intel apps in a year or two. Banktivity is now a monthly subscription so it's time to look for a different checkbook app.

• Had a car towed today. Was in a rental parking spot. Put a notice on it and gave them a couple of weeks.
• ORCL hit $202+ today and there for several hours. Tempted to sell this year's allocation now.

• DDO: CSr went to a movie. DW and I did The Newcomers (R3) and Black and Blue (R2). Both were quite doable.

• v1 Fighting' Scientists of Tesladyne
• v2 Dogs of War
• v5 The Deadly Art of Science
• v7 Flying She-Devils of the Pacific
• v9 Knights of the Golden Circle
• v13 Dawn of a New Era
• v14 The Vengeful Dead
• v15 Agents of C.H.A.N.G.E.

• The Art and Process of Atomic Robo (49pp) - "Brian Clevinger talks about writing comics the Atomic Robo way"
• 8-Bit Theater (21pp) - "A short RPG by Brian Clevinger where you're the Light Warriors"
• Troubleshooter (64pp) - "A light LUMEN-based tactical game of daring heists and deadly ship combat"

Stuff I already own

Stuff I don't own

• DDO Doing Deception in Stormreach/Attack on Stormreach on Legendary since we usually skip these. I kind of wanted to reincarnate but DW wants to keep playing Legendary quests.

• City of San Mateo web site now looks gigantic on my desktop Safari. I think they changed to adaptive UI and it thinks Safari = mobile. And it does look correct in Chrome.

• Last 3 or 4 nights sleeping on my bed does something to my lower left torso muscles so it's sore and a bit painful when I move. Since I was doing bed sheets laundry today I also flipped the mattress so maybe that will help.

• Took a few hours and got my servers running on the Mac mini. Eventually had to settle for: everything installed with MacPorts except for Postgresql 15 and PgAdmin4 installed with Homebrew because I couldn't figure out how to get MacPorts version of Postgresql 15 running.

• Sunday I realized my right foot felt like a bout of gout was going to occur so I took an Advil that night. Then Monday no meat but my foot was worse but I took an Advil every 6 hours. Tue morning even worse so two Advil at 0600 and 1200 then one Advil at 1800 and 0000 and still no meat. Today I woke up and my foot is much better. Disaster averted; though I'll try to keep it no meat today.
• C3 dinner. Takeout from Charm Thai Eatery.

• One of those nights when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. Ended up missing lunch with the guys.
• Parallels Spring sale. 50% off Standard (subscription only, $50/year) and Pro ($60/year). 35% off Business ($97.50/year). Looking around it seems that if your subscription ends you can't use the software anymore. I'd be willing to do a year every two or three.
• In any case CrossOver works really well for my needs -- playing games.
• Noticed that the current MacWhisper cleans up the ExternalMedia folder on startup. Better than doing it on quitting/finishing -- if the app crashes it won't the chance of cleaning up.

• Warhammer Skulls 2026 Digital Goodie Bag on GOG as a promotion. It's basically some wallpapers and coupon codes on the Cubicle 7 store. Worst GOG "free game" promo I've seen. Although come to think of it I vaguely recall they did something similar before.

• Matt Mahan (10)
• Antonio Villaraigosa (9)
• Tom Steyer (7)
• Xavier Becerra (5)
• Katie Porter (4)
• Steve Hilton (1)
• Chad Bianco (-2)

• Matt Mahan (12 + 6 + 10 = 28)
• Tom Steyer (11 + 7 + 7 = 25)
• Xavier Becerra (5 + 4 + 5 = 14)
• Katie Porter (4 + 6 + 4 = 14)
• Antonio Villaraigosa (4 + 9 = 13)
• Steve Hilton (1 + 4 + 1 = 6)
• Tony Thurmond (3 = 3)
• Chad Bianco (0 - 1 - 2 = -3)

Dark Conspiracy 1E

Dark Conspiracy 2E

• DDO. CSr, DW and I finished Vecna Unleashed except for the raid. We'll try that next week as it seems to be doable with a small party (i.e. you don't have to split up into multiple groups that then have to do things simultaneously).

• My MBP server seems to have stopped booting. I login and during that process it powers off (and spins up the fan quite high like for a split second before it powers off). Occasionally it would power off (with same fan behavior) which was a warning but I kept using it... Now I have to see if I can go back to my old Mac mini to run my server and that machine has its own problems (primarily macOS is so old that Homebrew is not supported though you can still use it but all updates require compilation on the Mac mini so it's quite slow to update).

• Got a haircut. Then Jeffrey's for a bacon burger with cheese, garlic fries, oreo milkshake for $33 with tip. Looks like last time I bought stuff there was Jan 2023. Might have gone there with Christopher and he paid because three years seems like too long a time in my memory.

• card.apple.com now has a section for Apple Savings so you can download your monthly statements, which I was commenting early this month you couldn't do.
• MBP Intel: tried erasing HD and reinstalling macOS via Recovery tool but that failed and now there is no OS installed. Will have to go back to my Mac mini and hopefully recover the wiki from my Time Machine backups.
• Mac mini: Homebrew couldn't install node@24 so instead uninstalled homebrew and installing MacPorts.
• Mac mini: MacPorts also failed to compile node@24. Sigh. For now will set it up on my main MBP.

• Since MacPorts covers some fairly old macOS versions each port has a details page with a Port Health section listing which macOS versions built the port successfully. Looks like they use automated builders for testing rather than relying on user reports. nodejs24 fails on Monterey while nodejs22 works so I'll install that version.
• One nice thing about MacPorts is that they have binaries for these old OSes so stuff installs fast.

• Eye exam. First time in about two years so maybe an extra test. Also got progressive glasses. $1080 including 20% discount. Compared to $380 when I had insurance. VSP is like $30+ per month so I guess it's worth enrolling if I'm planning on buying glasses at my optometrist. You do have to enroll for an entire year so I guess I'll wait until May 2027 or so.

• DDO. We tried the Vecna Unleashed raid, Fire Over Morgrave. Probably need two active healers because everyone is taking Evil damage over time. As long as that damage doesn't keep increasing then having two PCs attacking the big bad might work eventually. Also the more PCs near the big bad the less spawns so you probably do need a raid's worth of PCs (12).

• DDO: CSr is camping so just DW and I for two nights. We did Legendary Slice of Life on Friday and xxx.

• Every month I go to my iPhone to get my Apple Card and Apple Savings statements and then send them to my MBP so I can store them. This month I thought can't I get them on my Mac? You can go to https://card.apple.com and download your Apple Card statements but I don't see a way to get Apple Savings statements so guess I'll have to keep using my iPhone.
• Miami Grand Prix. Franco Colapinto at 7th (+6 points = 7), Oliver Bearman at 11th (+0 points = 17). 24 total points is barely 5th place.

• I started getting tired of Notes math results (where if you have an equation and then an = sign it'll calculate and insert the result). Used to be results came faster than you can type. Now they come in a second or two slow so I've already typed past and then it tries to insert a result. I found a support note (Solve math in Notes on Mac) and turns out you can turn it off in Notes > Format > Math Results but as you have probably already seen since it is in the Format menu it's a per Note setting (and if you select multiple Notes that is not a setting you can change). Oh well, at least I can turn it off in my TODO note where it occurs the most.

• Got charged for Alien 7-Film Collection (bought 10 days ago) and Viki monthly (which would be charged today). So I guess the rule is if you buy something from a store Apple won't charge for 10 days hoping you'll buy something else then it can charge both and save on the credit card charge. I remember this being a thing when iTunes Music purchases were about the only thing you could buy and a $1 song would have a fairly high credit card fee if charged individually.

• C3+S Dinner. Deliver from Joy Sushi. CJr had us do a couple of Mad Libs and he also wanted to play a game but I was tired and it was getting late for him. Maybe I should do a different night since Wed CJr has Jiu-Jitsu and he gets back at 1900.

• I finally caught up and listened to the last episode of The Sackhoff Show podcast. Starting this year the show pivoted to a BSG rewatch/react show and I think the episodes are only on Patreon.

• Since I was up early today went to Safeway and they had 8-piece fried chicken for $5.

• Tom Steyer (7 points)
• Katie Porter (6)
• Matt Mahan (6)
• Steve Hilton (4)
• Antonio Villaraigosa (4)
• Xavier Becerra (4)
• Tony Thurmond (3)
• Chad Bianco (-1)

1. Matt Mahan (12 points)
2. Tom Steyer (11)
3. Xavier Becerra (5)
4. Katie Porter (4)
5. Steve Hilton (1)
6. Chad Bianco (0)

• DDO: A couple more Vecna adventures that went faster.

• Apple has a pending charge for D.E.B.S on Apr 29 (I bought it Apr 16). Alien 7-Film Collection is on sale for $30 which is the lowest price they ever set it at according to Cheap Charts, although I guess all the movies are on steep discount right now as I'm only saving an additional $5. There is a question if Apple will change the pending charge and combine the two purchases so this is also a bit of a test.

• The building next door is tented for termite fumigation. I guess makes me worried a bit about our building since my confidence in Pacific Coast Termite is not that high. Not that they can't do the job once termites are found or reported but that their inspections are rather brief and I think nowadays they depend on customers reporting termite activity.

• I started watching Running Point on Netflix and it's pretty funny, but when Netflix said their ad-tier plan has less commercials than you'd expect that's because they all run on this show. It's like 1-1/2 minute ads three times in a half-hour dramedy never mind the amount of money Sephora paid to be on the show as a major sponsor to the fictional basketball team with subplots revolving around them.

• C3 dinner.

• I think I found Viki's auto play setting. It's not in the user settings. When you are playing a video go to options and there is Auto play there. At least for the one episode I turned it on for it worked. What a weird place to put the setting.

• Dr Fari Barzegar from Habitat Engineering and Forensics came today to examine our garage. Older gentleman and friendly, shared an egg salad sandwich with me and explained some of the things he found. I don't think he found anything really major though he'll recommend some more testing. Some miscommunication as he was expecting a retainer check here (and later I found out it was at Manor office). I ended up giving him $1900 cash and I'll get it back from the HOA later.

• Strangers in Paradise v1 to v19 (1994-2007) - Collects a lot of stuff.
• Echo v1 to v6 (2008-2011) - collects the complete 30-issue series. Woman gets super-powers via an alien(?) silver metal that covers her body.
• Rachel Rising v1 to v7 (2012-2016) - The whole 42-issue series. "Rachel Beck wakes in a shallow grave and claws her way free as a mysterious woman watches from a bluff. With no memory of the night before, Rachel enlists the help of Aunt Johnny, the town mortician, to find her killer."
• SIP Kids (2015) 4-issue series. "Strangers In Paradise fans rejoice! This fun series follows the all-new adventures of Katchoo and Francine, aged six!"
• Motor Girl v1 and v2 (2017) - issues 1-10 of the 10-issue series. "When a UFO crashes into her desert junkyard, Samantha and her imaginary gorilla friend, Mike, repair the ship and win the heart of the little green pilot named Bik."
• Strangers in Paradise XXV v1 and v2 (2018-2019) - 10-issue series
• Five Years v1 and v2 (2019) - issues 1-8 of a 10-issue series. "Five Years is the series from Eisner Award winner Terry Moore that brings all the characters in the Terryverse together for an epic story and high stakes adventure!"
• Serial v1 and v2 (2021-2022) - 10-issue series. "Zoe, the precocious serial killer from Rachel Rising, returns in her own series!"
• Parker Girls v1 (Dead Quiet) and v2 (Deadlight) (2023) - "An accountant for billionaire Zackary May embezzles $10 million dollars and loses it to a Parker Girl, setting off a chain of events that have Tambi and her team investigating murder and international espionage."
• Trigger Warning: A Strangers in Paradise Story (2024) - one-shot
• Fear of Death: A Rachel Rising Story (2026) - one-shot

• Ever: The Way Out (2020) - graphic novel about a girl running from a fallen angel that wants to sacrifice her.

• Hot Girls Cold Feet (2011) - "From dancing doodles to perfect pencils, here is a peek into the sexy world of one the comic industry's most revered artists."
• Terry Moore 25th Anniversary Sketchbook (2017)
• Terry Moore's 2021 Sketchbook (2021) "108 pages of beautiful sketches!"
• Terry Moore's 2022 Sketchbook (2022) - "Collecting the very best of Terry Moore's sketches over the last year, the 2022 Sketchbook contains 120 pages of gorgeous pinups featuring the women from his books Strangers In Paradise, Motor Girl, Rachel Rising, and more."
• Terry Moore...after dark (2023) "It features a stunning 120 pages of good girl art showcasing Francine & Katchoo from Strangers in Paradise as well as the expanded cast of this beloved, Eisner-winning series."
• Terry Moore Covers (2024) "Terry Moore COVERS collects over two hundred seventy five covers spanning Terry’s thirty plus years in comics!"
• The Really Complete Paradise To (2024) "This is a 360 page book filled with comic strips, cartoons, single panel cartoons, character designs and endless story ideas, many of which ended up in the comic book series Moore later produced."

• Terry Moore's How to Draw 2026 (2026) - "The new 192 page Terry Moore's How to Draw 2026 is updated, expanded and chock full of great information you can use to take your art to the next level. Detailed chapters offer advice on body language, expressions, comedy, beauty and more. And two brand new chapters have been added!"

• Drove back home with lots of food. Mom gave me five big bags of Starbucks ground coffee which will last for months.

• Dentist for cleaning. It was raining on and off, mostly on. One accident on the 680/24 which slowed me down for 10 minutes so I was a little late. On the way back drove through San Francisco. One stall which slowed me down though I happened to be on a lane adjacent. All in all almost 4 hours.

• Tuesday morning and I can't find last Friday Night Baseball games in search. Are they removed after a couple of games. Since there is no Friday Night Baseball page it's so hard to find previous games... Ok. I did search (e.g. "Tigers at Red Sox") then hit return (usually I rely automatic search results) and then can find the game (mind you it does say "Apr 17" but no year so I wonder how you'll determine the right game if home team+away team+month+day happen to match. But you have to know the teams because "Friday Night Baseball" search does not return old games.

• C3 Dinner. Delivery from Shiki Laurelwood. Pork ramen and sushi were both ok not great.

• HOA Meeting. We hired an engineering company to examine the crack in our courtyard. The unit in foreclosure contacted us but we need to have our lawyer contact them but he's called and they haven't answered their phone. I'm afraid they'll try a payment plan and then only pay once or twice and go silent again, which I believe they did before with our collections agency.

• DDO: CSr and I did a couple of MW5 scenarios. Then when DW joined we did Legendary The Bark and the Blade at R5 and that took over an hour because you do all this stuff and think it's done but nope that was about half the adventure.

• DDO. With DS gone for a few months we're back to DDO with our primary characters. Fri and Sat night we finished Legendary Isle of Dread at R5. Mostly easy though the final quest we were debating removing the curses and it killed five of six characters then after we finished we went back to the mud caves for the optional and it killed three more characters and we gave up.

• Bought Sekai Project 2026 Bundle.

• Trader Joe's for juice and milk.
• Started reading World End Economica p1. It's a visual novel and in general don't expect great writing.

• Signed up to Zillow a couple of weeks ago and have been looking at properties. Today received a cold text asking if I was looking to sell my place (don't think I've ever had this before). I guess Zillow sells your contact info.

• C3 Dinner. Corina made ham with baked potatoes and a salad. CSr and I went to see Project Hail Mary.

• Apple charged my CC for subscription to Viki placed on Apr 06. I'll let it renew once to see if still delays charging like it's a normal purchase.

• Decided to move out my tv shows and movies to external media since I rarely watch them. Also used this chance to make sure all my purchased tv/movies are downloaded. Apple has said that if they lose rights you can't re-download but can still watch downloaded purchases. 1.77 TB so now my external SSD has 2.78 TB free.

• Quantum and Woody The Complete Classic Omnibus (Oct 2014) - "Collects Quantum and Woody (1997-2000) #0, 1-21 and 32, The Goat H.A.E.D.U.S. Special Event (1998 Quantum and Woody) #1, and X-O Manowar (1996-1998 2nd Series) #16."
• X-O Manowar Classic Omnibus (Jan 2015) - "Collects X-O Manowar (1992-1996 1st Series) #0-30, Armorines (1994-1995 1st Series Valiant) #0, X-O Database (1993) #1, as well as material from Secrets of the Valiant Universe (1994-1995) #1"
• Archer and Armstrong The Complete Classic Omnibus (Jan 2016) - "Collects Archer and Armstrong (1992-1994) #0-26, Eternal Warrior (1992-1996) #25, Chaos Effect: Omega (1994), and the story THE FORMATION OF THE SECT."
• Ninjak The Complete Classic Omnibus (Feb 2018) - "Collects Ninjak (1994 1st Series) #1-26, #0, and #00, Ninjak Yearbook (1994), Bloodshot (1993-1996 1st Series) #5-6, and Bloodshot (1993 1st Series) (1993) #5."
• Bloodshot Classic Omnibus (Sep 2019) - "Collects Bloodshot (1993-1996 1st Series) #0-24, Rai (1992-1995) #0, Eternal Warrior (1992-1996) #5 and 14-16, Secret Weapons (1993-1995) #3, 9-10 and 13, and HARD Corps (1992-1995) #5."
• Shadowman Classic Omnibus (Oct 2021) - "Collects Shadowman (1992-1995 1st Series) #0-24, The Second Life of Doctor Mirage (1993-1995) #5, Secret Weapons (1993-1995) #1-2, and Darque Passages (1994 Valiant)."
• Eternal Warrior Classic Omnibus (Oct 2022) - "Collects Eternal Warrior (1992-1996) #1-25, Eternal Warrior Yearbook (1993) #1, Archer and Armstrong (1992-1994) #25, Harbinger (1992-1995) #32, Secret Weapons (1993-1995) #3 and 6-10, and Valiant Era Companion (1993)."

• Walked to C3's place to bring in a package and pet Lima for a few minutes. Walked to Fletcher's for a takeout deluxe burrito and a regular nachos (which is pricey but a dinner takeout box full of chips and so much meat). Walked home. It was a warmer day than expected so fairly tired and thirsty by the end.

• DDO: Just Dave W and I. We did Body and Mind last night and failed but got to analyze the last room and when we tried it again tonight it was fairly easy (two lightning generators that electrify the floor which kills you fairly quickly; jump on the table to avoid the electricity then destroy the generators though they are kind of tough). We also did Catastrophe which Dave W doesn't remember ever doing.

• Apple charged my Gettysburg purchase today, 11 days later.

• Visited Lima. There were three packages outside which I brought in. Afterwards went to Trader Joe's.
• Traveller 5e on Backerkit. This is not Traveller 5th edition but Traveller for D&D 5E. $100 for just the core rules in hardcover. There are three other hardcover books but you need to pay $350 for that bundle. Luckily I don't care about D&D 5E and am happy enough with the current Mongoose Traveller 2E rules (and I didn't see any mention of conversion from MT 2E to Traveller 5e.
• Anyways I was on Backerkit looking for a way to disable getting added to product specific mailing lists when the company I follow launches one because that's annoying getting two identical emails. But apparently can't disable that.

• Accidentally opened Preview on my iPhone and noticed they're a scan documents function. Scanned my tax forms and found it maxes out at 24 pages at a time then you have to create a new document. It does auto-straightening so the scans come out ok. It's good enough to replace Scanner Pro which is what I currently use for document scanning. But will test more. Haven't tried 2-page scanning -- Scanner Pro has a 2-page mode for books and pamphlets that will split up a 2-page scan into two 1-page images automatically as you scan, though it is a bit fiddly.

• Mailed my tax return today. Then went to Mi Rancho for milk and chicharron.

• California Prohibit Taxes on Retirement Holdings and Personal Savings Amendment. They mailed me a petition to sign and return and then they sent me a reminder card. Points to having a lot of money which immediately makes me suspicious. Sure enough notable donors are rich individuals.

• Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game - Starter Set ($15)
• Root: The Roleplaying Game ($25) [OWN]
• Masks: A New Generation ($20)
• Bluebeard's Bride ($25) [OWN]
• Pasión de las Pasiones ($20) - telenovela rpg
• Epyllion: A Dragon Epic ($12) - Homeric Epic rpg
• Undying ($12) - vampire rpg
• Crossroads Carnival: One Night Only Edition ($5)
• Passing: Ashcan Edition ($5) - secret aliens on Earth rpg

• Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game ($30)
• Republic City ($23) - Avatar Legends supplement
• Uncle Iroh's Adventure Guide ($23) - Avatar Legends supplement
• Wan Shi Tong's Adventure Guide ($23) - Avatar Legends supplement
• Cartel ($25)
• Clearing Booklet ($13) - Root supplement [OWN]
• Travelers & Outsiders ($25) - Root supplement [OWN]
• Halcyon City Herald ($15) - Masks supplement
• Secrets of AEGIS ($15) - Masks supplement
• Unbound ($15) - Masks supplement
• Book of Lore ($17) - Bluebeard's Bride supplement [OWN]
• Book of Mirrors ($17) - Bluebeard's Bride supplement [OWN]
• Book of Rooms ($17) - Bluebeard's Bride supplement [OWN]
• Booklet of Keepsakes ($10) - Bluebeard's Bride supplement [OWN]
• Tarot of Servants PDF Companion ($3) - Bluebeard's Bride supplement [OWN]
• Encyclopedia Draconica: Tales & Stories ($12) - Epyllion supplement

• MW5 we got a couple of scenarios done. Gloomhaven for a job mission which was surprisingly harder as we had two characters reach exhaustion and a third about a turn away. My character since I can deactivate my songs I do have a two-card reserve as long as I remember to deactivate before I run out of cards.

• DDO we did a 20th anniversary run and then I had Dave S upgrade his cloak. Then we did Feast or Famine at R5 with a lot of dying though Dave W was out for half of it.
• Watched Japan Grand Prix. Unfortunately Oliver Bearman crashed (right after George Russell and Charles LeClerc did pit stops so that was unfortunate for them and it let Kimi Antonelli pit, catch up, and eventually win the race) and Franco Colapinto came 16th. Leaves me at 18 points and virtual tie at #4.

• Safeway for Liquid Drano and Rice. Then a bunch of other things for $102.
• Lazy Monday where I can take a shower, do laundry, hopefully wash dishes.
• Reading a Suppressed Transmission (by Kenneth Hite) about Punch and Judy and I never realized it's a real puppet play with a plot and all.

• I forgot my kitchen drain is kind of clogged so using the disposal pushes water back up into the main sink and also into the dishwasher via the waste water hose. I opened the dishwasher and it was full of dirty water but not to overflowing luckily. Quite yucky.

• Dinner at C3's place. Takeout from La Petit Camille.
• Steph gave me revised tax returns. I own about $170 federal and $220 state which is about as well as can be expected when I was choosing how much stock to sell last year. I expect my health insurance premiums will go up maybe $100 per month.

• HOA Meeting. We're adding Sunday to garbage rotation (Custom Maintenance will rotate our garbage bins on Saturday and on Sunday) and hopefully that alleviates bin overfilling on Sunday. Getting two bids for engineering destructive testing to examine our courtyard crack (it's a straight crack along the pour line so hopefully not a big deal).

• DDO: Dave S and CSr not around. Dave W and I tried Body and Mind (for the first time) at R1 (we're level 34 -- he has a rogue with that weapon that turns people into gold or platinum for a few seconds and I'm a sun elf). One rare boss was a bit tough but we didn't die otherwise easy until the end fight. Electrical floors killed us quickly. There are generators we probably need to destroy and a table we can stand on. Try again tomorrow night.

• WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.01 (May 2014, $13, OWN) From the author of Spice and Wolf, Isuna Hasekura, comes WORLD END ECONOMiCA. This is the first episode out of three part sci-fi/economic thriller visual novel set on the moon.
• NEKOPARA Vol. 1 (Dec 2015, $10, OWN) What's NEKOPARA? Why, it's a cat paradise! Kashou Minaduki, the son of a long line of Japanese confection makers moved out to open his own shop "La Soleil" as a patisserie.
• WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.02 (Jul 2015, $13, OWN) From the creator of Spice and Wolf, Isuna Hasekura, comes World End Economica. Haru woke up with his life but without his dream. 4 years after the incident, he finds a new cause, as a driven young lady offers him a chance to return to investing and to find justice.
• NEKOPARA Vol. 0 (Aug 2015, $3, OWN) Please note that NEKOPARA Vol. 0 is a fandisc for NEKOPARA Vol. 1
• NEKOPARA Vol. 2 (Feb 2016, $10, OWN) Business is booming for La Soleil, the patisserie run by Kashou Minaduki with his two catgirls, Chocola and Vanilla, his sister Shigure, and the Minaduki family's four catgirl sisters.
• KARAKARA (Jun 2016, $10, OWN) KARAKARA. It is the sound of aridity. It is the sound of dry asphalt and sandy winds. It is the sound of relentless sunshine, as well as the sound of a withering race.
• Just Deserts (Jul 2016, $10) Just Deserts is a sci-fi action dating sim where you play as a soldier who must protect a city from mysterious alien attack, while at the same time you will also be seeking to capture the heart of your dream girl(s)! Theme song by Vesuvia [Ecky], vocal track by iMochi
• Ne no Kami: The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto (Oct 2016, $10) Ne no Kami is a romantic Japanese yuri visual novel adventure. A unique feature in Ne no Kami is the use of videos to illustrate battles and action, dynamically changing the pace and tension.
• Japanese School Life (Nov 2016, $10, OWN) Welcomed by the fluttering of cherry blossom, the main character, Brian, starts a new high school life in Japan. Brian soon starts to get along with two girls in the same class after they start to talk to him. With their help, Brian gradually learns Japanese culture and customs.
• Memory's Dogma CODE:01 (Nov 2016, $15, OWN) Japan, 2030 A.D. Memories can now be digitized and archived, allowing people to communicate with the deceased. With only one week left before his best friend’s memories are deleted, can Hiroki uncover the truth behind Sorano’s death?
• WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.03 (Dec 2016, $13, OWN) The conclusive episode in this visual novel trilogy is set in the far future on the moon. Will Hal's dream be realized? It's been 8 years since the events of episode.01. With the economics of lunar city going out of control what is going to happen next?
• NEKOPARA Vol. 3 (May 2017, $10) Patisserie "La Soleil", run by Kashou Minaduki, is flourishing thanks to the help of two catgirls: Maple, full of pride and a little on the haughty side, and Cinnamon, an impulsive daydreamer.
• Ne no Kami - The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto Part 2 (Sep 2017, $10) Kyoto is shrouded in silence. While the Ayakashi change course and prepare themselves for invasion, a sudden turn of events suddenly has Len drawing her sword against Shinonome. What brought upon this drastic course of events?
• KARAKARA2 (Nov 2017, $10) KARAKARA. It is the sound of aridity. It is the sound of dry asphalt and sandy winds. It is the sound of relentless sunshine, as well as the sound of a withering race.
• NEKOPARA Extra (Jul 2018, $5) About half a year before the opening of the patisserie, La Soleil where the catgirls work with Kashou. Back when Chocola and Vanilla were still kittens when they first arrived at the Minaduki household and before they opened up to the other catgirls.
• Ninja Girl and the Mysterious Army of Urban Legend Monsters! ~Hunt of the Headless Horseman~ (Jun 2019, $16) The setting is a Japanese cafe in the suburbs of present-day America. Inside, there are two girls. One—Kiri Hattori—runs the store, while the other—Mary—is its poster girl. Their true identities, however, are that of a ninja descendant and a fire-hurling ghost. Together, they protect the town and hunt the Dark Beings that disturb its peace. On a certain stormy night, they offer shelter to a girl they find in front of Kiri's store. Appearing before them at the same time is the vengeful spectre—the Headless Horseman—whose story is inextricably linked with theirs.
• NEKOPARA Vol. 4 (Nov 2020, $10) Despite the popularity of, "La Soleil", Kashou's father continues to disapprove of it. Determined to get his father to approve of him, Kashou journeys to France to seek advice from the teacher who taught him his craft. A new chapter awaits in the next volume of the NEKOPARA series!
• Island Diary (Jul 2021, $17) The main character, Ryou, has lost his memory after drifting ashore. He ends up living the castaway survivor lifestyle together with the girl who finds him, Momo. According to Momo, there are two other girls on the island: Kuro and Moca. However, they had a falling out between themselves for some reason and they all live on their own.
• My Girlfriend’s Special Place (Mar 2023, $15) One day, our hero is headed home from Akihabara when he's mistaken for a molester. The person accusing him is his childhood friend, Fuyuka Akiyoshi. "If you want me to forgive you, then become my butler!" Recently reunited, these two end up in an unusual relationship as their story begins again...
• Nie No Hakoniwa - Dollhouse of Offerings (Feb 2024, $30) "Let us celebrate, the birth of this nightmare." A story about an urban legend surrounding a certain "Box", this is a Japanese-style, supernatural visual novel about madness, love and hate.

• Gloomhaven: another story mission done, this one for Tinker.
• Gaming at Dave and Sophia's. Got 100m session done, maybe cut it a bit short as I was tired. But the unfinished material can be used in later adventures I think.
• Christopher brought Bonchon wings and fries. It was ok.
• We went walking afterwards. For Jonathan walking is an excuse to go to the various park jungle gym areas and play.

• DDO last night. We did three runs of 20th anniversary quest. One more run for Dave S to get 50 so he can buy an item if he wants.

• I guess there's a new version of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. I bought it a long time ago and paid for the in-app full version upgrade. Re-downloaded today but can't restore purchases (actually a bit unclear whether or not it worked)... Ah I see from the description this is an HD remaster. Same name so I guess the old version is dead.
• Here's a support article: Redownload apps from Apple. Was able to redownload Ghost Trick though it's unclear if I can restore my purchases -- appears not but maybe it already did.

• After looking at my subscriptions I'm going to cancel BotezLive and AnnaCramling Twitch ($12/month for both) until I have enough to get one-year Viki Plus ($120 annual).

• A week or two ago the Lose It! app got a bit of a UI overhaul but searches became really slow. Like I type a couple of letters then the UI freezes as it searches and displays results for those letters and further taps are ignored. I think it did that before (searching as you're typing) but it didn't slow down the typing part of the UI. Maybe time to look for a new app.

• Gettysburg: Extended Edition is now $5 so I will buy it. Standard edition I noticed was on sale for $5 a couple days ago and I had decided that if it still was in two days then I'd buy it. Luckily though now I can the Extended Edition instead. Extended edition also has German, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles which is a nice just in case. Current payment is credit union credit card. Apple often waits a few days to charge a credit card so hopefully it'll be charged next month but I'd rather not wait a couple of days and risk the price going back up.

• Watched some of the Japan Grand Prix qualifying. It's important since in general the better your starting position the better you do in the race. But the qualifying is kind of boring -- it's just a bunch of cars trying to have a fast lap but they're spread out enough they rarely interfere with each other (and the slower car is supposed to let the faster car by I think).

• PELG-T01 Trail of Cthulhu (2008) [OWN]
• PELG-T04 Keeper's Resource Book and Screen (2008) [OWN]
• PELG-T06 Shadows Over Filmland (2008) - 11 shorter adventures [OWN]
• PELG-T09 Rough Magicks (2009) - magic book [OWN]
• PELG-T22 Out of Time (2011) - four adventures: Not So Quiet, The Black Drop, The Big Hoodoo, Castle Bravo [OWN]
• PELG-T30 Out of Space (2013) - five adventures: The Repairer of Reputations, Flying Coffins, Many Fires, Hell Fire, The Millionaire's Special [OWN]
• PELG-T33 The Final Revelation (2013) - five Purist adventures (Purist mode meaning all PCs expected to die or go insane): The Dying of St Margaret's, The Watchers in the Sky, The Dance in the Blood, The Rending Box, The Final Revelation [OWN 4 of 5 adventures]
• PELG-T34 Eternal Lies (2013) - campaign [OWN]
• PELG-T37 Mythos Expeditions (2014) - 10 journeys into the unknown (adventures) [OWN]
• PELG-T40 Cthulhu Apocalypse (2015) - survival horror supplement with 16 adventures/scenarios (half previously published as The Dead White World and Slaves of the Mother), includes PELG-T24 The Apocalypse Machine [OWN most of this]
• PELG-T43 Out of the Woods (2017) - five adventures: Midnight Sub Rosa, The Silence Mill, Dreaming a Better Tomorrow for 30 Dollars a Month, The Coldest Walk, Trembling Giant [OWN]
• PELG-T44 Cthulhu City (2017) - setting, "a strange, corrupted Arkham, a ghastly metropolis", includes one full-length adventure The Whispering Light [OWN]
• PELG-T45 Fearful Symmetries (2021) - campaign framework based in English folklore, includes PELG-T46 Book of New Jerusalem
• PELG-T47 Hideous Creatures: A Bestiary of the Cthulhu Mythos (2018) - monsters book [OWN]

• Saw a newspaper article about a plan to redevelop my local Safeway. There will be a Safeway plus 400 living units. My local Trader Joe's mall is also being renovated though that was announced years ago and no visible sign that anything has started. There are often holdups.

• MacWhisper: I realized that the Parakeet v3 model often only transcribes 10 or 20 minutes and then stops. That does make it seem so much faster than other models. I switched back to Large v3 Turbo which is slower but still transcribes at like 10x audio speed. Now I have to check previous transcriptions for the last couple of months.

• Stayed up late to catch up on weekly reading.
• Apple AirPods Max 2 ($550). I want this even though it may have the same moisture problems as the previous versions. None of the reviews I've seen mention if the build quality is improved, though I think they're all going off of the press release and none have physically touched the new product.
• Months ago I was getting a bunch of cold calls and emails from one of the Fidelity investment teams, all of which I ignored. Finally I answered a call and told them I wasn't interested. That was maybe three months ago say. Maybe a month ago I started getting cold calls and emails from a different Fidelity investment team. This time I blocked their number and will have to mark their email as spam.

• Went to the dentist and had two fillings done, one in upper right and one in lower left. Took an hour so it was quick. Luckily no pain when he injected the anesthesia (first they do a local so that the injection doesn't hurt but sometimes it hits an awake nerve). Drilling sound is disconcerting and sometimes there's a lot of water in my mouth -- good thing that today I could breathe from my nose; when it's a bit stuffy and I have to breathe through my mouth it's really tough.
• Afterwards I went to 99 Ranch and got some tofu, black bean sauce, and then other things I can get at a normal store. And still I went to Trader Joe's for some meat as I didn't find anything appealing in 99 Ranch (other than ground pork).

• C3+S dinner. Steph made corned beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage. Everything was good though the cabbage was a bit bitter.

• HOA Board training seminar which I've attended before but it's a little different each time. A couple of new things I learned: confidential information has to be kept confidential even after you leave the Board (makes sense); for a building walkthrough (like for say Reserve Study) if a majority of board members are present then it's a meeting and homeowners should be allowed to attend (and I think we did this before for something when I wasn't on the board yet); always carry workplace injury insurance because it's cheap and just in case -- homeowner hires someone who gets injured and has no insurance and sues homeowner and then HOA.

• I did a bunch of transcriptions overnight with MacWhisper. Then today I tried a small batch and it went up to 18 GB RAM used and macOS started freezing applications and popped up a window saying it was out of application memory and chose applications to force quit. Recovered from that and tried again and once again 18+ GB memory used. Rebooted and now MacWhisper seems to be working ok, about 10 GB memory in use because I'm using a large model.
• Oops. Ran out of HD space. Turns out MacWhisper's ExternalMedia folder is 259 GB. mp3 and m4a files I guess the extracted audio from the videos I was transcribing.
• Ok. Figured it out. MacWhisper copies the original file to ExternalMedia (so files of 1 GB to 4 GB in size) then creates an m4a mono audio and uses that for the transcription. And at the end it doesn't clean up ExternalMedia so it'll just keep taking up more and more space. Hopefully just a bug that will be fixed.

• DDO we did Reclaiming the Rift R4 and The Deal and the Demon R5. Both times I'm not sure any PCs died.

• Daylight Savings jump forward. Had the thought that maybe someday with auto-adjusting clocks we can just move forward or back like a minute or two per day and we wouldn't notice the change.

• DDO: I tried doing Madstone Crater on R1 with my two characters but too hard. I don't have enough killing power to keep the bad guys away from the giant priest at the second crystal -- this is the one where he's on top of a hill with four paths up to it and an overlooking ledge where an Ogre Magi pops out. I've managed to do it on Hard placing passive hirelings in front of two monster caves. I can keep them healed and take out the three monsters coming up. I'll level up then try again on Elite.

• The whole Winter Olympics came and went and I heard bits and pieces but didn't watch any of it. Just didn't have the free time -- I'd rather watch more K-dramas.

• At the last HOA meeting people brought up that there is a drug rehab recovery living housing planned a couple of blocks from here. A few people seemed quite against it. I'm fine with it. I think if you're recovering and go there you are trying to get better so not a danger to the community.

• This SJ Mercury News article mentions it'll be the Horizon Recovery Center, operated by Horizon Treatment Services. From the description it looks fairly benign with 79 spaces, half of them for long-term treatment.

• Since last HOA meeting I've been reviewing the security cam footage, one weekend per night, to see when Francisco comes to rotate the garbage bins. I've done five weekends and can't find him on Sunday. Will investigate more. It might be a misunderstanding between Custom Maintenance and us.

• Need more coffee filters so an excuse to go to Safeway and see what the deli has on $5 Friday. It was BBQ Beef Tips and Fried Alaskan Pollock squares. I got 8 squares for $10, lemonade (I didn't see any Newman's lemonade and it didn't look like there was an empty space for it so maybe that Safeway doesn't sell it anymore), and some almost-expired salmon on sale for like $10 per pound.

• Deadlands: Core Rules ($50) - Not really a new edition but a new format: Savage Worlds core rules trimmed down for Deadlands, character stuff from the old main rules + some of the companions, GM stuff from the old main rules minus a bunch of monsters now separated out. Two minor rules changes (for Dueling and Chases) are available free on the Pinnacle web site but all the stuff is pre-existing material.
• Deadlands: Rascals, Varmints, and Relics ($40 or +$25 if buying core rules) - monster and treasures book.
• Deadlands: Accessories Box ($50) - physical accessories for GMs: action deck, bennies, conviction tokens, GM screen, set of dice, five dials to track ammo or power points, poster map, reference cards.
• Deadlands: Power Cards ($30) - reference card sets for all arcane backgrounds
• Deadlands: Starter Set ($40) - "showcase" version of rules, one adventure, maps, tokens, pawns, action deck, templates, archetype cards
• Deadlands: 30 Years of Games, Grit, and Ghost Rock ($50) - history and picture book, there will be no PDF version

• Gaming at Dave and Sophia's. Santa Clara event at Levi's Stadium and Dave W took Jonathan. We also had a dinner with Dave P so when we got there I started the game at 1430 and we went to 1600. Dave S was there for the last 30 minutes and Dave W and Jonathan arrived at the end.
• Dinner at Big Al's. Kind of like a more family friendly Dave and Busters -- restaurant, arcade, pool tables and other things.

• Friday night in Gloomhaven we did a Tinker story scenario.
• Last night Dave S was tired so didn't game. Christopher, Dave W and I did the 20th Anniversary Quest a few times.

• iPhone 17e announced. $600 with 256 GB storage. It says up to 1.5x faster than my current iPhone SE 3rd gen so no hurry to upgrade.
• iPad Air M4 announced. $600 for 11" model with 128 GB storage. A bit better than the iPad Air M3 I bought recently which I am quite happy with. Less cores than regular M4 so a bit slower than an M4 Mac or iPad Pro which also uses M4.

• Studio Display refresh announced. 27" 5K Retina for $1600 (+$400 for height-adjustable stand, it's already tilt-adjustable). Also Studio Display XDR announced. 27" 5K Retina with up to 120 Hz refresh rate for $3300. Apple applied for medical imaging approval for XDR so it is a pretty high-end display not really for gaming.
• MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max announced. 14" M5 Pro (15/16 core CPU/GPU), 24 GB memory, 1 TB storage is $2200. 1 TB storage is nice (I currently have 512 GB). 24 GB memory I find sometimes a little low -- the only upgrade is to 48 GB for +$400.
• MacBook Air now has M5 option. I do find my MBP M4 Pro uses the fans when I'm running Handbrake and maybe some games so I like the luxury of a fan.

• On day 3 of Apple announcements the big new thing is entry-level MacBook Neo for $600. A18 Pro chip, 8 GB memory (non-upgradeable), 256 GB storage (can go to 512 GB), 13" display, two USB-C ports though one is USB 2 speed (no charging port), supports on external display. Wouldn't be bad for my parents as from what I saw they only use it for web browsing, email, and card/mahjong games.

• HOA meeting. Courtyard work goes slowly. Dry rot work is finished and people are pretty happy with the work of A.C. Enterprises. They replaced a lot of rotted out wood and it looks the same as the original, cleaned up their mess, and the workers were friendly.

• Gloomhaven: we did a Travel quest. Soothsinger Shield + Retaliate combined with Summoner's animals is quite effective against monsters that have lots of Attack 0 or 1 even if they do Poison.

• Neon City Overdrive (72 pages, $10) - "a fast-playing cyberpunk RPG that focuses on story and action. Character creation is fast, and the D6 dice-pool rules, often keyed to your character's edges, flaws, Trademarks, and Drive, are simple and intuitive."
• The Grid (60 pages, $6) - "The Grid expands the world of Neon City Overdrive with new character options, enemies, and story hooks to take your games off the street and into this digitized wonderland."
• Skin Jobs (22 pages, $5) - "This supplement...describes ghost chips and skins, and it provides rules for re-skinning and transfer sickness..."
• Psions (28 pages, $5.50) - "...explores psychic powers, psionics, and the untapped powers of the mind."

• Wolves Upon the Coast Grand Campaign (355 pages, $50) - "The 51x32-hex Wolves Upon the Coast color map details the islands of Ruislip, Albann and Noos, an island chain known as the Mid-Isles, the peninsula of Faroe, and much of the mainland, Pyorra – about 540 keyed hexes, roughly akin to Northern Europe in what used to be called the "Dark Ages."
• Monsters & (56 pages, $8)
• &&&&&&&& Treasure (180 pages, $13)
• Whale Road (256 pages, free) - the chronicles of a 30-player campaign. "The project grew into this remarkable 256-page book featuring fictionalized session summaries for the whole campaign, as well as narrative from outside the sessions, commentary from players and Referees, house rules, and odds and ends that emerged through play."

• Downcrawl 2E - a system neutral setting where the down-below is generated on-the-fly as PCs explore new areas.
• Downcrawl Delver's Guide - the tables from the main book
• Skycrawl - I guess the same sort of concept as Downcrawl except up into the air
• Ten Ports in an Infinite Sky - ten encounter locations, each 2-3 pages
• Downcrawl Adventure Zines #1-3 - each zine is one adventure

• With Mr Cooper I could pay extra on my mortgage bill and I think select that the extra is principal rather than future payment (or it defaulted to extra principal payment). With Rocket Mortgage their dropdown is (1) pay amount due, (2) principal only payment (3) custom amount. With the last all you can do is enter a payment amount and any extra is applied as future payment on the next bill. So if I want to pay my current bill and extra principal it's two transactions which is only a little of extra work but still annoying that they default it that way -- future payment you've given them money that they get to hold for a month interest free. I guess I can make the future payment now to force it to apply it immediately.

• Friday and Saturday night it was just Dave S, Dave W, and me. Did one Dave S MechWarrior scenario then Gloomhaven and finished the Bard quest that we had failed a couple of times. Saturday Dave W showed up on time and we did The Price of Freedom, Epic R2. Then Dave S had to sleep early as he's on call at 0500.

• Took mom to physical therapy. She's pretty good now. Doesn't need brace except maybe outdoors. Mostly doesn't need walker. Can do a small step up and down and the therapist said last week she could have been driving if she can brake comfortably. Time for me to go home.
• When I got back my MBP was shut down so must have been some sort of crash.
• Netflix renewed for 4th month so I'm going to watch less and assume it'll be around for the time being.

• Let's clean my podcast subscribed list a bit:
• The Rebound (Last listened: Feb 18 2026) - Once again in a phase where they hate everything Apple does.
• The Talk Show (Last listened: Jan 31 2026) - Similar to The Rebound but covers more than just Apple.
• Kings Herald Podcast (Last listened: Feb 02 2026) - The problem with a podcast focusing on one team is that if the team is bad it's a fairly negative podcast. And the brief period when the Kings seemed to be on the upswing (2022-23 with 48 wins led by De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis) is now well and over.
• So I guess I did it wrong with Rocket Mortgage. The default payment method has an entry for extra principal so I didn't need to select the third option. To balance it out now I made my Apr 01 payment today.

• Safeco (my insurance company) is retiring its name in favor of parent Liberty Mutual, which bought them in 2008. I didn't realize it was actually Liberty Mutual, which is more of a known brand.

• Took a browse through our security camera computer settings. We can do individual and group quotas so maybe put the cameras that record constantly on one quota. This is to give the quieter cameras, especially the ones monitoring the package area, more recording history. Package issues are the most common issue to review recordings.

• After two months my retirement savings down $15k which is fine considering how the stock market has been.

• Belowdown - 112 pages, $16 retail, 19-level mega dungeon
• Dark Visions - 88 pages, $15 retail, three occult character classes -- Cultist, Inquisitor, Covenant Knight -- plus two adventures
• Tower of Six - 36 pages, $8 retail, third adventure to complete the trio started in Dark Visions
• The Devoured Labyrinth - 122 pages, $13 retail, 41 one- and two-page mini dungeons
• Horde - 174 pages, $10 retail, orc and goblin splatbook
• Hyborian Adventures - 83 pages, $15 retail, five REH stories made into adventures: People of the Black Circle, Queen of the Black Coast, Shadows in Zamboula, The Jewels of Gwahlur, and A Witch Shall be Born.
• Treasures from the Dark - 74 pages, $10 retail - 100 magic items

• Drive to San Mateo. Car pooled with CSr to DunDraCon.
• Lunch with Woos and CSr at Ming Tasty.
• Walked through dealer's room. Tempted to buy Mothership Deluxe box set. Maybe tomorrow.
• CJr played Monster Smash and we hung out in the Kid's Room for over an hour. I watched a 45m video on Netflix with Cellular bandwidth and it used like 100 MB data -- the video was like 240p so a bit pixelated even on my iPhone SE 3's small screen.
• Rainbow was ok. Dave S's setup with the 360-degree teleconference cam worked better than last year. Three people remote (Eric R from our gaming group, Rigo and Mark R from the NOC). Dave S, Dave W, Christoper, Dave's two college kids Riley and Dawson, Ken Hite. Corina was there for a drink. She didn't like the one she bought for herself so I drank it and it was good. Also had one of the blue drinks so two drinks this year. Dave P could not make it.

• Breakfast at 1000 or so. I woke up before 0900 to participate in STFC territory control.
• Bought Mothership Deluxe Set from Games of Berkeley. There were three other copies (2 from Black Diamond Games, 1 from Gamescape) that I saw yesterday but sold out today.
• We played Run! (Dave S, Christopher Sr and Jr, myself) and Cora Quest.
• CSr took Jr to an art event so they were gone for a couple of hours. When they came back CSr and I left for San Mateo. From there I drove back to my parents.

• Took mom to therapy. She continues to improve. I saw her walk from the front door to Steph's bedroom and back, about 20 steps each way, without the walker and seemed fairly steady.
• Next week they'll try to climb a small step. Theoretically she can already climb up stairs while climbing down stairs will be harder.

• Got a notice for the class action settlement for "In re Capital One 360 Savings Account Interest Rate Litigation, Civil Action No. 1:24-md-03111-DJN (E.D. Va.)." So filled out my info again. Looking back I got the same notice (with different dates) back in Aug 2025 so I guess the settlement has been taking it's time (the judge has to approve so maybe they sent it back to the litigants last time).

• Playing around with Steam collections. The app only shows installed games even though other games are in collection. So what's the point of having collections where I can't tell what's in them?
• Oh wait. Collection view is using the filters from the browse column. That's unintuitive.
• No wait again. It only filter for installed games if you click the installed games filter on the browse column. No other filters affect collection view. Very unintuitive.

• Noticed that on my MBP server the logged in user's window server has crashed which kills all apps and Wiki.js is running from a terminal window so that shuts down too. UptimeRobot catches it so I can at least know about it then VPN in and when I get past the lock screen the window server restarts.

• Apple's Clock app Stopwatch feature often changes the current time when I switch out and back. I thought maybe because I use it on both Mac and iPhone and maybe it's trying to sync but if it is syncing it's not a fast sync like with other Apple apps. Timer and Clock functions work fine.
• I'll try Stopwatch(little circle, so it's a unique name) by Kai Oelfke. It's simple, free, and no ads, though it doesn't run on Mac so maybe I'll look for another app.
• For Mac I found Mini Stopwatch - Minimal Timer by Clement Rousseau (free, $8 for pro version). It's a simple stopwatch in the menu bar so very Mac appropriate.
• Server died again and this time both www2:3001 and later www2. VPNed in and can't reach my MBP. Guess we'll see Monday -- maybe machine shut down or restarted.

• Gloomhaven yesterday was nice. I keep forgetting my bard's songs don't affect me -- my final plan was rushing the bad guys so they attack me and get retaliated which would have ended badly if not for an ally stepping in closer.
• Tonight we did one DDO quest with Dave S then he had to go to sleep early. We did one more quest then it was midnight so we called it.
• Packed up for an hour then drove to Mom and Dad's arriving about 0320.

• Seahawks beat Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl 60. Defense stifled Patriots until the 4th quarter. Offense was not particularly great but moved the ball enough for some FGs and then turnovers and big plays for a couple of TDs.

• Took mom to therapy. She's coming along fine.

• Talked to mom and dad and they're fine with me going to DunDraCon this weekend. Will be a long drive there Saturday morning then back Sunday night. Need to take mom to therapy Monday morning at 1000.

• Dad made arroz con pollo and it was really good. He used a deep pan, which you use for paella, and the rice came out very nice. The last few times his arroz con pollo rice came out too squishy.

• Paramount keeps extending their tender offer for Warner Bros. shares. Must not be going well for their hostile takeover attempt.

• Pack for DDC. One backpack so just computer, extra shirt, extra underwear.
• Got short at mom because she wanted to go to the bank with no notice and I was already modding a stream. If she had told me yesterday or this morning I could have planned to go with her at noon to make it back by 1500. Anyway, Dad took her to the bank.

• Go! Go! Nippon! Complete Collection (Sep 2011, $20, Windows, OWN) - "As the game's protagonist, you'll travel to famous Japanese sightseeing spots in the company of a pair of beautiful young sisters. The girls will describe the spots, take you out to dinner, and grow closer to you throughout your travels."
• Eden* (Jan 2015, $20, Windows, OWN) - "A tale of the planet's final love story told using the full force of minori's critically acclaimed illustrative style, engaging musical compositions, and the highly talented staff that has led fans coming back for more every single time!"
• The Expression of Amrilato (Jun 2019, $25) - "a girl-meets-girl yuri visual novel" that uses Esperanto as a key element.

• A Sky Full of Stars (Dec 2017, $5, Windows) - "This story full of love, comedy, and excitement follows our protagonist and his stargazing friends as they grow together. "A Sky Full of Stars" is a coming-of-age astronomy tale by the same team who brought you "If My Heart Had Wings"."
• If My Heart Had Wings (Jun 2013, $3, Windows, OWN) - "After a bicycle accident shatters his dreams of becoming a racer, Aoi Minase returns to his hometown, depressed and defeated. With seemingly no hope left for the future and no idea what to do with himself from here on, Aoi meets Kotori Habane―a young girl stuck in a wheelchair with a flat tire. It is on that windmill-dotted hill that Aoi's somber yet touching story of youth, friendship, and flight begins."
• If My Heart Had Wings - Flight Diary +New Wings: Akari DLC (Feb 2019, $7, Windows) - "While If My Heart Had Wings -Flight Diary- is technically a fan disc for If My Heart Had Wings, it includes six stories - including the prologue and epilogue to the main story - and acts as a sort of sequel to the original."

• Gal*Gun Returns (Feb 2021, $50, Windows) - "The infamous ecchi rail-shooter is back! Fight back with pheromones as girls throw themselves at you and try to find true love in less than a day! Discover a beautifully reimagined version of the first game of the series that never came to the west!" Doesn't sound like a visual novel.
• Needy Streamer Overload (Jan 2022, $16) - "NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD is a “multi-ending ADV” depicting daily life with “OMGkawaiiAngel”, a young girl with a rather extreme need for approval attempting to become the #1 “Internet Angel” (streamer). Gradually build up OMGkawaiiAngel’s number of followers as she spends her days streaming, using various ”stress relievers”, and generally being kinda messed up. Experience all the different crazy ups and downs and find out for yourself whether this story is even capable of having a happy ending."
• Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines (May 2023, $7) - "Meet Penny, a corporate grunt and serial procrastinator who spent all her time at the office doodling comics and playing phone games instead of working on her project. Now a weekend away from missing her deadline, Penny must find inspiration and overcome all sorts of distractions to finish her project on time and not disappoint her mentor (and not get fired). And maybe she'll learn something about herself in the process."
• Sucker for Love: Date to Die For (Apr 2024, $13, Windows) - "Put the ‘love’ in 'Lovecraftian horror!' Avoid the fanatical cultists and survive dangerous rituals to escape the Black Woods with your life in this 90’s anime inspired visual novel!"

• Sort by last update date is close but not the best since any edit will change the last update date. I may miss one or two but hopefully get it later next time around.
• Lots of sites how have 2FA which is nice -- nicer when it's an authenticator app which Apple supports very well. Still good when it's SMS since again with macOS/iOS you can click in the field and it gets the authentication code from the SMS message (almost always, some sites send explanation text followed the code and the OS won't see that as an SMS code). Worst is email since then I have to go and read the email and manually copy/paste.
• More and more sites support Passkeys which is also nice as that's more secure.
• This is also a good opportunity to check that my address is correct, my phone is correct (I'm transitioning to mobile only), that privacy settings look good, etc.
• Also a good opportunity to delete passwords for dead sites or consolidate passwords -- Passwords can add multiple web sites to an entry but two different login usernames gets two different entries; normally in that case I'll delete one of them to avoid confusion since authenticator and Passkeys go to one entry.
• Due to how some web sites do it Passwords might not recognize that you updated a password after you click save. But if you then navigate to a different page it'll ask you.
• Apple Keychain Access is still a thing. It keeps track of computer passwords like for encrypted hard drives and network shares (though not WiFi that got moved to Passwords).

• DDO we did all of Epic Druid's Deep at R3, R4, R4, R1 the last cause we were low on time.

• CSr arrived for lunch. I left about 1630 and back home.

• I had this thought that in the Chinese dramas I watch so much drama/conflict comes about because people refuse to talk to each other to clear up issues. Person A tells Person B something about Person C and Person B doesn't ask Person C if it's true, or Person C wants to explain what happened but Person B refuses to even listen, or there is a lot of internal monologue arriving to the wrong conclusion without investigating further. It's not like this doesn't happen in other dramas but Chinese dramas can be overdependent on that trick.

• Library for 3 books, Gassed up car, Trader Joe's, Deposit a bit of cash

• Stand with Minnesota, for donating to various orgs. It's gotten rather heated and political but that's what happens when you martyr someone.

• This year I remembered to use a credit card instead of PayPal to renew my Mint Mobile subscription.
• CSr was discussing how well mom is doing and how long we expect to be helping them. I want to see mom moving well without her walker and without leaning on walls and chairs. Doesn't have to be fast. But I guess if I change my mind after another couple of weeks staying there.

• After several weeks off I plugged in my almost-dead Ooma and it worked first time. I guess the service was working fine since voice mails are kept in the cloud (for a month or two then they're auto-deleted) and I don't have a phone connected to my Ooma.

• A Companion to Wolves (Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, 2007)

• The Tempering of Men (Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, 2011)

• An Apprentice to Elves (Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, 2015)

• Karen Memory (Elizabeth Bear, 2015)
• Stone Mad (Elizabeth Bear, 2018) - next in the series, Angel Maker (2025)

• A Passage of Stars (Kate Elliott as Alis A. Rasmussen, 1990)
• Revolution's Shore (Kate Elliott as Alis A. Rasmussen, 1990)
• The Price of Ransom (Kate Elliott as Alis A. Rasmussen, 1990)

• Spirit Gate (Kate Elliott, 2007)
• Shadow Gate (Kate Elliott, 2008)
• Traitor's Gate (Kate Elliott, 2009)

• Feedback (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant, 2016) - book 4

• Rise (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant, 2016)

• Countdown (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
• How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
• The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
• Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
• All the Pretty Little Horses (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)
• Coming to You Live (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant)

• Chimera (Seanan McGuire as Mira Grant, 2015) - book 3

• These three don't need a replacement since they're still free to use with only a few features paywalled.

• Apple's iMovie seems like the logical choice for amateur video creation

• Apple's GarageBand is pretty nice though I only use it to record podcasts
• Audacity - similar to GarageBand in terms of recording, I use it to compress my podcasts to 22kHz mono as Garageband doesn't have a way to compress it that low
• Levelator v3 - great for leveling out podcast sound, though now only available on Archive.org
• 2026-03-19: actually I forgot Levelator 3 is in the Mac App store. Reminded because it was updated today (it's only updated to keep it running on modern macOS).

• I have the old Pixelmator Pro from the Mac App Store. Might no longer get updates but for now it works fine.
• Affinity Studio is free (subscription for AI features). It does pixel and vector graphics and page layout.

• Not sure if iMovie can do any of this.

• Handbrake is more of a way to encode video for different devices but along the way you can reduce file sizes.

• An unusual app that I don't have any alternative.

• Even though it'll be another 10 months, cancelling my RapidWeaver Classic subscription is probably for the best. It's pretty much in maintenance mode so you only get bug fixes but even then bugs are not being fixed. My showstopper -- application crashes just after a global search finishes and displays results -- has been there for months. I noticed recently that deleting a blog entry gives you a warning that it'll be permanent but only a cancel button that behaves like ok (delete entry) so the warning is effectively useless. Without a subscription RapidWeaver will keep working until an OS update breaks it permanently. But with a subscription it's slowly getting less and less usable though still largely just fine.

• Last night we played a Gloomhaven quest which took a really long time and we lost Then we played a couple of long NY Times puzzle games. CSr is using Steph's account as she has a subscription which opens up both new games and advanced goals for some of the free games.
• And then I woke up early to do Twitch mod duties.

• Mom's therapy appointment. She's moving pretty good now. Can get in and out of bed (the couch). Can get to/from garage entrance (there's a small step). Can get into and out of car by herself (though someone needs to take care of the walker).

• Mom's doctor appointment. Progressing well and everything looks good. Probably keep knee brace on for full three months: on Wednesday it'll be at 70 degrees and +10 degrees per Wednesday. Next appointment in six weeks.

• Parents Internet data usage about 650 GB for the month. I watched videos but didn't download Twitch VODs (which are huge) and watched Twitch at 480p (I assume live stream is also big like the VODs).

• I was thinking why I wasn't using Anything to create apps. It comes down to you 3k credits for signing up and I don't want to waste them. If you give me X amount of free credit but that's it then I'm afraid to use them. If you give me a little bit of free credit per month and it's "use it or lose it" then I'll make sure to use those credits. I think if you want people to try your service maybe the latter model is better.

• Gloomhaven. Re-tried last scenario with max level characters and this time was a comfortable win.

• Full Metal Schoolgirl (Oct 2025, $50, Windows 64-bit DX 12) - 3rd person shooter with cartoon graphics
• Ed-0: Zombie Uprising (Jul 2023, $30, Windows 64-bit DX 12) - 3d person combat. "A rogue-like action where traditional Japanese characters (Samurai, Sumo Wrestler, and Ninja) destroy hordes of zombies. Since everything is randomly generated, no run will be the same. Decision making will be essential but there are some RPG elements as well."
• Samurai Maiden (Dec 2022, $60, Windows 64-bit DX 12) - 3rd person sword fighting with cartoon graphics.
• Maglam Lord (May 2022, $40, Windows 64-bit DX 12) - Action RPG with cartoon graphics. "a vibrant action JRPG straight from the depths of hell! Boasting exploration, real-time combat, weapon crafting and relationship building."
• Onee Chanbara Origin (Oct 2020, $60, Windows 64-bit) - 3rd person sword fighting game.
• Bullet Girls Phantasia (Jan 2020, $30, Windows 64-bit, DX 11) - "the latest installment of the all-female third person shooter "Bullet Girls" series. This game is a thrilling action-packed game where cute girls shoot assault rifles and bazookas in a world filled with slimes, orcs, and dragons."
• Omega Labyrinth Life (Dec 2019, $60, Windows 64-bit) - "Roguelike x Relaxation! Take it easy in the latest addition to the series where you buff your bust with every foe you defeat, Omega Labyrinth! Enjoy your daily life in an academy of fair maidens!"
• SG/ZH: School Girl/Zombie Hunter (Jun 2018, $40, Windows 64-bit DX 11) - "SG/ZH is a shooting action game where the story takes place at "Kirisaki High School". The school has been suddenly cut off by the outside world and surrounded by the crowds of zombies."
• Onechanbara Z2: Chaos (Jun 2016, $40, Windows 64-bit, DX 11) - "Onechanbara Z2: Chaos is the latest entry in the Onechanbara series. Two sets of buxom vampire sisters battle through over a dozen stages of high-octane real-time swordplay. Fight off the invasion in gruesome detail, occasionally transforming into a demon for short bursts of added power and speed."

• Eternal Love (2017) - this was 58 episodes so watched 2 episodes a day throughout the month
• Vagabond 1.7 to 1.16 (2019) - I finally finished Vagabond
• Hi Bye, Mama! (2020)
• My Holo Love (2020)
• In Love and Deep Water (2023) - a Japanese vacation cruise murder mystery
• Invisible Us (2024)
• Cinderella Closet (2025)
• The Great Flood (2025) - a Korean sci-fi action-drama movie as the world suddenly floods

• Gaming at Dave S's place so that Christopher and I can switch being at parents.
• We got a couple of hours of D&D in. Leveling up characters. Then reading X1 handout and buying/outfitting a ship. Then sailing to the Isle of Dread which was mostly Borin rolling Navigation checks and a couple of random encounters.
• After the game we walked to Cold Stone for a bit of ice cream and beer at Jack's. Then walked back. I think I rubbed this spot at the bottom of my foot because it feels tender.
• Drove to parents. Foot definitely bothering me. Not a blister yet.

• Limping around the house bothers mom so she keeps nagging me about it. Great to be with parents :(
• Apparently the guys had scheduled a game tonight since tomorrow is a holiday. Luckily I saw the Discord messages so I hopped on 10m late. We played DDO Vault of Night which took us to 0130 (a good half hour or more fighting the last boss since we did little damage and he kept healing) and then did Plane of Night which took 20m.

• Mom's appointment at Laguna Physical Therapy & Hand Rehabilitation. Small business with room for maybe a max of 10 simultaneous patients but probably 5 comfortably.

• Calendar keeps reminding me to leave for CW's family events since they have a shared calendar I subscribe to. Don't see a way to limit "Time to Leave" alerts to specific calendars so I guess I'll turn off that feature.

• GURPS Basic, Fourth Edition, Revised is coming this March. The FAQ says $100 for the book (it's one book now) and pdf.

• I wish Twitch allowed two payment methods, one for subscriptions and one for buying bits and gifting subs. Or generally even support for multiple payment methods and you can choose which to use at point-of-sale (with a default payment method for subscription auto-renewals).

• DDO: Dave S was out so we played DDO with our A characters. Got three quests done in Legendary Isle of Dread.

• Barbarella Holiday Special (2018, 48pp)
• Barbarella/Dejah Thoris TPB (2019) - [OWN issue #1]
• Blood Queen vs Dracula #1-4 (2015) - [OWN as part of Blood Queen Omnibus]
• Elvira in Monsterland #1-5 (2023)
• Elvira Meets Vincent Price TPB (2024)
• Elvira Meets HP Lovecraft #1-5 (2024)
• Green Hornet Miss Fury #1-5 (2024)
• Purgatori Must Die TPB (2024)
• Red Sonja/Tarzan TPB (2019) [OWN]
• Red Sonja/Chaos: Age of Chaos TPB (2022) [OWN]
• Red Sonja The Superpowers TPB (2022) [OWN]
• Sonjaversal v1 TPB (2022) - v2 not in this bundle
• Red Sonja Hell Sonja #1-4 (2022)
• Lords of the Jungle: Featuring Tarzan and Sheena TPB (2016) [OWN]
• Vampirella vs. Dracula TPB (2012) [OWN]
• Vampirella/Army of Darkness TPB (2016) [OWN]
• Vampirella vs. Reanimator TPB (2019)
• Vampirella/Dejah Thoris TPB (2019) [OWN]
• Vampiverse TPB (2022)
• Vampirella The Dark Powers TPB (2022)
• Vampirella vs. Purgatori TPB (2022)
• Vampirella vs. the Superpowers TPB (2024)
• Vampirella/Dracula: Unholy TPB (2024)
• Vampirella/Dracula Rage TPB (2024)

• Prophecy TPB (2013) [OWN]
• Chaos TPB (2015) [OWN]
• Legenderry A Steampunk Adventure TPB (2015) [OWN]
• Swords of Sorrow: The Complete Saga TPB (2015) [OWN]
• Die!Namite TPB (2022) [OWN]
• Die!Namite Lives TPB (2023)

• Army of Darkness vs Re-Animator TPB (2006)
• Monster War TPB (2006 Top Cow/Dynamite)
• Army of Darkness Ash vs. The Classic Monsters TPB (2007)
• Masks v1 and v2 TPB (2013-2016)
• Sherlock Holmes vs. Harry Houdini TPB (2015)
• Greatest Adventure HC (2018)
• Project Superpowers Omnibus v1 TPB (2018) - v2 and v2 not in this bundle
• Army of Darkness vs. Reanimator Necronomicon Rising TPB (2024)

• Apocrypha (76pp, $15) - from a Jan 2022 KS.
• Hallowed (48pp, $15) - formerly titled Bone Heart Crusaders, from a Jul 2023 KS.
• Monsters! (48pp, $15) - from a May 2023 KS.
• Refuse (48pp, $15) - discarded ideas from previous books.

• Death & Taxes (48pp, $15) - adventure with "a demon infestation, a shortage of silver coins due to the king's ravenous taxes, and an economic depression caused by mandatory daily festivals", from Apr 2024 KS.
• Monochrome (48pp, $15) - adventure: "the miserable and cruel Countess Anthelia seeks to hasten the end of the world by constructing many huge telescopes", from a Jan 2025 KS.

• The Factory (trifold, $2) - mini-adventure
• Holy Femurs (trifold, $2) - mini-adventure
• Rat Cellar (trifold, $2) - mini-adventure

• Commercial Pack of Maps ($5) - 40 maps for use with any RPG

• Vent cleaner company (The Vent Cleaner) came by this morning. I had to let them in walked out of my apartment without my front door keys -- I automatically picked up the keys on the counter and walked out but apparently I had left my front door keys in my other pants pocket. And then as I was thinking about it I walked into the courtyard and locked myself out of the building.
• Luckily I had my phone so used the call box to ring myself and the vent guys into the building. And I had picked up the misc keys so I had the office key and could grab my emergency backup we store in the office (along with anyone else who wants to store an emergency key there). I had only put in an emergency key a couple of months ago when I decided I'm never having guests at my place in any case.
• Vent cleaning was interesting. Guy comes in and moves my dryer forward then climbs into the back. Uses a power tool to unscrew the exhaust tube then has this blow dryer thing with an exhaust-sized hose that he uses to blow the lint out into the exhaust shaft. Someone on the roof has a vacuum cleaner with a long hose they drop in and suck up the lint. Takes like 10 minutes so 19 units is about 3 hours for two people. But there were two people working the floor so 1-1/2 hours with slack in case of difficulties.
• Donated via GoFundMe and I forgot that if I select PayPal it uses the last PayPal funding source and doesn't ask. I find that quite annoying.

• At my parents when I'm using this soft mousepad (which is still better than using the mouse on a cloth-covered dining room table), I have a hard time clicking Notepad links, it usually selects text or does nothing. When I'm home on a hard-topped desk then my Apple Magic Mouse clicks links just fine. Possibly the mousepad makes it seem like I click + move the mouse a little so it's not really a "activate link" command. If I use the Glorious Model O mouse the click usually registers correctly.
• Power outage from about 1215 to 1450. Luckily sun was out so got 100 minutes of reading in. PG&E is fairly good at estimating time to repair. Usually estimate comes within 30 minutes of the outage and the estimate (in this case it was 1445) is pretty accurate, I guess maybe it's "find out which part is broken, get part from depot, replace it". An email saying power was back came at 1450.
• Modiphius another web site transition to Shop. I can login with my current password (and when you put in an email address it triggers opening a little "login with Shop" window) but no UI choice to change my password.

• I forgot Gym Precision was coming by to do maintenance. Luckily he got here about 1230 (estimate was 1100 to 1400).
• Got a text saying I needed to schedule an appointment for 2 fillings. Earliest afternoon opening is March 17th which is great since that'll be six months after Mom's surgery so she'll have full range of motion.
• I thought this up in the shower: since Dave W doesn't like MechWarrior 5 the plan will be Fri/Sat play MW5 until Dave W arrives then switch to Gloomhaven/DDO. Gloomhaven we'll often have to break in the middle of a scenario until the next week but that seems to work ok. DDO has few very long quests -- and in that case we can run at a low Reaper level -- so we should be fine there.

• Apple Creator Studio bundle at $130 per year. If you're a professional I think it's a lot cheaper than something from Adobe. And for non-professionals Apple still has iMovie (instead of Final Cut Pro) and GarageBand (instead of Logic Pro), though nothing free instead of Pixelmator Pro.

• Started playing Slay the Spire+ (for the first time) after I went to bed and a couple of hours later I finished a run to completion and it was 0530.

• Got my Kaiser bill. Used it to register to kp.org/payonline (which redirects to https://ucp.aciondemand.com). From there I could pay my bill. Paying from my kp.org login still doesn't work, pay and set up recurring payments buttons don't do anything in Safari or Chrome. It's only by going to the help and watching that video that I got the kp.org/payonline link.

• Prepping for tomorrow's D&D session.
• Printing out stuff I won't have a chance to do later.
• Playing too much Slay the Spire.

• Finally Underworld 5-movie bundle on sale in Apple Store. $25 which is lower than last year's $30.

• Last night Dave S was having trouble with his controller. We played a bit of MW5, DDO was pretty useless, played half a Gloomhaven scenario. He is rather useless as a keyboard/mouse player.

• Briefly looked for an iPad text editor. Way too many choices. Too bad there is no version of BBEdit for iOS/iPad. Guess I'll stick with using Apple Pages.

• I've been sleeping on the couch in case mom needs to get out of the couch in the middle of the night. Was ok for a week or two but now my back is killing me. Switched to a mattress on the rug but was not a great idea. For some reason my right leg is sore when I wake up, more like a cramp or maybe a nerve. Right leg since I sleep on my left side. Sleeping on my right side is painful. I guess tonight I'll just sleep on a regular bed. Mom says she is fine until Dad wakes up about 0600.

• PG&E Bill for Nov 26 to Dec 28 is only about 80% of previous bill even though I was mostly absent and only home about one week.
• U-Haul seems to be going to emailed code logins. Although you can your password I didn't find where I could change my password.
• Received a Kaiser email about getting a prostate cancer screening. If I do it first step is a PSA test which is a blood test. Mostly reliable indicator but not for sure. Kaiser also has a page with more information that makes prostate cancer not seem that bad as 1 in 8 men get it but it's seldom aggressive cancer. I'm encouraged enough to at least do the PSA test after I'm living back in San Mateo.
• If you look in IRS web site, https://www.annualcreditreport.com is the official place to get your free credit reports (you can go to each credit bureau separately but they make it hidden/hard and provide you less info). This time I got one credit report and will do the other two in four month intervals so that it's easier to monitor for sudden changes.

• Went to kp.org to pay my monthly premium. The view bill, pay now, automatic payment buttons don't do anything (tried it in Chrome even). Apparently you can go to kp.prg/payonline which goes to a different service provider to either login or do actual payments. You have to register but to do that you need info from your bill and since I don't have a bill I can't sign up. So I guess they haven't generated a bill yet.

• Went home today as mom and dad didn't want me to drive late.

1. Jacksonville Jaguars
2. Houston Texans
3. Los Angeles Chargers
4. Buffalo Bills
5. Chicago Bears
6. Seattle Seahawks
7. Green Bay Packers
8. Pittsburgh Steelers
9. Carolina Panthers
10. San Francisco 49ers
11. Denver Broncos
12. New England Patriots
13. Los Angeles Rams
14. Philadelphia Eagles

• Oops. Didn't realize that my new iPad Air M3 came with iPadOS 18 and is still on it. I'll wait to upgrade to iPadOS 26 until I'm home. I'm looking forward to multiple windows.

• Dave S wasn't around so we did DDO White Plume Mountain with our good characters.

• My cousin Jaime and his wife and eldest son (also Jaime) came for lunch. Since all three sons are attending USA colleges (two in California and one in Indiana) they're all applying for permanent resident and elder Jaime and wife are looking to buy a place in California.

• Mom's doctor visit. Stitches removed. She is healing well. Now allowed to bend knee 30 degrees + 10 degrees per week (you can set it on the brace). Next appointment in 4 weeks.
• DDO Symphony of the Fey run is done as I died in Madstone Crater. Tried a jump but fell into lava, cast Dimension Door but died before I could get through. Ironically I remember dying this way before in a hardcore event, maybe even in the same place. There is a point where I think I can shortcut and save a few seconds but the jump is just a bit too far and you don't grab onto the ledge.

• I figured out the Comcast account web site doesn't quite work in Safari (some pages just never load completely). Maybe I already knew this.
• Slow start (my stocks were under from start of the year to mid-year) and slow end (stocks down 15% the last couple of months). But overall up 16% YTD and now at almost $3M in retirement funds.

• It's been one year doing Forever Notes, though I've only been doing the journaling part not so much the data storage stuff.

• Power outage at my place last night, about 4 hours. Couldn't reach my server in the middle but can reach it now. I 'm guessing UPS ran out of power so Sonic ONT went offline and my MBP kept running on internal battery long enough for power to come back (if it shuts down then starts up after power outage it would be stuck on login screen with no services up).

• Burning Wheel Gold Revised (600 digest pages)
• Burning Wheel Codex (560 pages)
• Burning Wheel Anthology (122 pages)

• The Painted Wastelands (152 pages) - "100 new monsters, 35 fully detailed hexes, and four dungeons"
• Player's Guide (45 pages)
• Referee Screen
• Strange Tales of the Painted Wastelands (56 pages) - detailed locations you can drop in anywhere
• The Quest Unpronounceable (50 pages) - adventure

• Aaron Allston's Strike Force (283 pages) - this is the new version from the KS of like 10 years ago
• Strike Force Organizations (333 pages) - "eight of Aaron Allston's major factions, groups, and teams from the 22-year Strike Force Universe campaign"
• The Strike Force Archives (800 megabytes) - "Aaron Allston's original material for his long-running HERO System campaigns", thousands of pages of GM material
• Hero Games #42: Strike Force (98 pages) - a new scan of the 1988 Champions module plus three manuscript versions.

Sally Beauty (Empower, $24k)

Fidelity (Microsoft, $100k)

Fidelity (Oracle, $2M)

10% ($200k) on a stable fund.

20% on an international fund.

30% on USA small/mid-cap.

40% on USA large cap.

• MW5 (Christopher). Woo declined to play so we did a few 3 Mech scenarios where we each have a Heavy Mech (65 to 75 tons). Pretty fun. First couple as an Archer and first I do is go find a slope at the edge of the map where I can bring fire support. Later I had a Victor and it's actually a bit fun running up and firing the AC/20 (which is one projectile, unlike the Hunchback's AC/20 which is a stream of projectiles). Victor is 80 tons and has fairly good armor.
• DDO we did Epic Chains of Flame at R4. Woo had to leave half way through and didn't come back until after we finished. 17 PC deaths.

• A limitation of DriveThruRPG/DriveThruComics is that the same product sold by different publishers is a different item. I bought a Champions campaign book on DTComics and this supplement is co-produced by two companies. On DTRPG the other company sells it but since it's a different item it's not shown as owned by me. Not sure if this also happens if say a product moves publishers on DTRPG -- I suspect that would also be a new item.

• Mom had a Norco pill on Saturday and none Sunday and today which is good since it's an addictive drug. She hasn't taken Ibuprofen the last couple of days so I guess the pain is manageable for her.

• Mom had her orthopedic doctor appointment. Took off the bandages and knee looks like it's healing fine. Staples come out next week.

• C3 and Steph spent the day with Corina's family and arrived here about 2000.

• CJr got a Switch 2 and an iPad for Christmas. Switch 2 has a nice 7.9" screen, a bit smaller than an iPad mini so I guess a mini would be a large enough screen to be useful.

• Tonight we did one MW5 scenario and then one Gloomhaven scenario.

• DentaQuest Family Dental HMO
• Delta Dental Family Dental HMO
• Blue Shield Family Dental HMO

• Humana Insurance Company Family Dental PPO ($56.99 per month)
• Anthem Blue Cross Family Dental PPO ($54.27 per month)
• Delta Dental Family Dental PPO ($50.45 per month)
• Blue Shield Family Dental PPO ($53.00 per month)

• Yearly Deductible: $50
• Yearly Benefit Limit: $1500
• In Network - Checkups: $0
• In Network - Fillings: 20% Coinsurance
• In Network - Root Canal: 50% Coinsurance
• Out of Network - Checkups: 10% Coinsurance
• Out of Network - Fillings: 30% Coinsurance
• Out of Network - Root Canal: 50% Coinsurance

• DDO - we did The Chamber of Raiyum (Epic) after a late start (2330). Luckily he was in the first tower so we killed him and finished in about 45m (almost got TPK'd once but Dave S's hireling got stuck and didn't come down to the fight that finished us off so he was able to summon it and raise me).

• Christopher arrived for the week.
• Dad made primer rib for an early dinner.
• Drove home.

• Met with AC Enterprises who will do our HOA dry rot work. They're using big ladders which explains why they're a lot cheaper -- the other two bidders were going to use scaffolding which is quite expensive. I suppose a painting job will require scaffolding but for dry rot patch work it's probably overkill (though maybe also safer than ladders).

• HOA holiday party. Espostos Catering. About 20 people attended so lots of extra food. I took a bit home. Also was contact next morning for catering to pick up their stuff.

• Dentist appointment at 1400 + x-rays. Took a couple of hours to get home. Next appointment on Monday -- it's been on Wednesday for years back when Nemo had Tue/Wed off but she's been on Mon/Tue off for a long time now.
• Steph drove to Elk Grove for mom's operation. They were at hospital at 1300. Surgery started about 1700 and took a couple of hours. They were able to take mom home that night.

• Drove to parents arrived about 1450. Late lunch (beef stew and rice). Won ton soup with noodles for dinner.
• I arrived a bit after Steph had left for home.
• Christopher left after dinner.
• I brought my 27" monitor and it's nice. Not really enough room to have a dual-monitor setup.

• Wow Tiltify, you both require an email code and then an authenticator code? And I don't see a way to change my password. Their help says you can reset password in Personal section but I don't see that option. Oh well. Oh I get it, Tiltify now uses emailed codes to login. I hate this meme as it takes so much longer to login to a website.

• Hotaru no Hikari: It's Only Little Light In My Life s1 (2007) and 2.1 to 2.6 (2010)
• Marry My Husband (2023)
• She and Her Perfect Husband (2022) 1.13 to 1.40 [Watched the first 12 on Viki]
• The Spies Who Loved Me (2022)
• True to Love (2023)

• Finished the first Symphony Lute (requires 500 points). Next one is 1250 points so maybe I'll finish before end of event on Feb 03.

• Setup my new iPad Air. Unfortunately it grabbed the iPad 5th Gen apps list and installed those apps so now I have to set up the apps manually.
• I was hoping Star Trek Fleet Command would play faster but sadly maybe too dependent on network communications. It still seems a bit slow.

• Got a hair cut.
• Drove to mom and dad's.
• Mom will need surgery as a tendon detached (the one that raise her leg) then up to 3 months healing then another 9 months therapy.
• STFC does run a bit better on my iPad Air. I think it was slow because it was still downloading assets.
• Also Prime Video picture in picture works. PiP may have stopped working on my old iPad because of lack of RAM; though Apple TV app still did PiP fine.

• Since Advanced Premium Tax Credit is being reduced I'll change to Kaiser Bronze 60 HDHP HMO for 2026. It'll still be $40.66 per month with max out of pocket $7200. Covered CA has a link that goes to plan provider payment for first month payment. Was fairly easy.

• Annoying in PayPal that I have a home phone I want to delete but must add a new home phone, which has to be a valid number (it does some check). So now that I have a mobile and phone set I have to have two valid (and different) phone numbers set.
• Strange that Schwab offers to send me a text message code to my home phone when I don't have it listed in my contact info. I do have my mobile listed but it's a slight security risk if I can't delete the other phone number.

• So when I came back on Monday I set up mom's old 24" monitor. It is bigger than my MBP but I'm used to 27" resolution so even 24" feels a bit cramped (and really macOS icons and menus and such assume you have a big monitor).
• Unfortunately couldn't use my MBP as a second monitor because it doesn't quite match with the monitor so it either looks too small (which strains my eyes as I scan both monitors) or I have to use the magnified view and then the screen resolution is rather low.

• Gloomhaven - a rare loss. We were supposed to protect a golem but it went to the front line (in retrospect I could have forced it to move back) and we shielded and healed it but a sniper did 10 damage and killed it.

• Incredibly last minute but I enrolled Kaiser Silver 87 HMO which my APTC covers completely. It is Pending and will only be for December. I think I have to also do an enrollment for 2026.

• Searched for "ipad m3 stand". Found this 9to5 Mac article on Best Accessories for Your New M3 iPad Air. Bought the KUXIU X33 Pro MAX(2025) iPad Magnetic Charging Stand for $73 (25% off Black Friday sale and with free shipping).
• Connected to my home network with OpenVPN. Then mounted my server and ran ChronoSync to update my web site.
• I guess one issue with my TP-Link router is that the OpenVPN module is just that a separate module so I can't see what clients are logged in via VPN.

• Frak. RealMac charged me for RapidWeaver subscription again.
• Nemo announced her new chess set. Meant to be $500 USD though since it's a UK company they set it to a round number in British Pounds and right now with exchange rate it's like $506 USD (free shipping).

• Bought Humble Bundle Last Call for Lankhmar bundle.

• Mom's theories can be weird sometimes. "Oracle has been doing big layoffs because everything is moving to AI." Oracle was doing layoffs before AI was a thing. It's the development of a good engineering base in India and China that means more expensive engineers in the USA can be laid off -- to a certain extent. AI has nothing to do with it.

• Got woken up early as we had to go to doctor again for mom. Several moving parts: MRI was scheduled for end of month because it was marked regular; doctor changed it to urgent but that moved her up to Dec 15. Moving to Dec 10 (earliest open date) is proving to be a problem. Meanwhile Orthopedics rejected referral -- apparently they don't think her injury applies to them.

• I'm getting the impression that Prime Video iPad app shows more ads than the Mac app.
• Came home for the weekend. After 9 days my monitor feels huge.

• Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 (264 pages) [OWN]
• Behind the Claw (288 pages) [OWN]
• Sword Worlds (176 pages) [OWN]
• Aliens of Charted Space v1 (288? pages) [OWN]
• Aliens of Charted Space v2 (288? pages) [OWN]
• Skandersvik (104 pages) - Sword Worlds campaign ($30)
• Spinward Marches: The Bowman Arm (20-odd pages, $6 e-book)
• Spinward Marches: The Lunion Shield Worlds (20-odd pages. $6 e-book)
• Deneb Adventure 1: The Lost Duke (42 pages, $12)

• Mysteries of the Ancients (304 pages, $25)
• Secrets of the Ancients (256 pages, $21)
• Wrath of the Ancients (280 pages, $25)

• Wanted to make sure my RapidWeaver Classic subscription was cancelled. They don’t make it easy to find. Eventually had to search on Duck Duck Go which took me to a RealMac Subscription FAQ page. This points you to the Account Management login (enter email, they send you a link) and from there go to Subscriptions tab and cancel if need be. A bit of a dark pattern there as most web sites have a link to your account page form the home page or a way to get to it from the app.

• Yesterday MW5 for DS and I then DDO adding DW as CSr missed.

• I had forgotten you can disable macOS Autocorrect. And actually from the Input Sources Edit screen I disabled auto-capitalize, predictive text, period replacing double space, and everything else. I’m too old and set in my ways.

• Shower drain was very slow today but seemed fine last time I showered. Guess I’ll look more into it when I get back after Thanksgiving. Hopefully whatever clog there is is on my pipe because if it’s in common I’m afraid people above me might flood my master bath.

• Drove to mom and dad's. Started at 1100 and got there at 1400 -- an extra hour because a fair amount of traffic. I should have left earlier but I was sluggish this morning.
• Mom fell last night going down the stairs with the vacuum cleaner. It was a few steps and then the wall where the stars turn. She twisted her knee and then fell again doing more cleaning with her walker.

• Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, apple pie.

• Dad, CSr and Steph took mom to urgent care as she wanted to get x-rays. She broke a bone (crumpled down so it's a more stable break) and may be weeks to heal. We'll call her primary care physician on Monday and get an appointment.
• In the meantime I'll be staying over at mom and dad's at least this coming week. I brought two changes of underwear and a couple of books for the Thanksgiving holiday so it's not too bad for me. Did forget my AirPods Pro and the noise cancellation is no nice here since Dad keeps the tv on fairly loud.
• Ordered an iPad Air 11" M3, Wi-Fi, 256 GB from Amazon. On sale $550+tax. My iPad Pro 10.5" is now 8y2m old so I hope this Air will be useful for four years and ok for another couple more years.
• Did not get the keyboard cause that's like $300 with tax. Let's see how I like it without the keyboard, which with my iPad Pro the keyboard part died early but using it as a stand is quite nice.

• Salvage Union: Workshop Manual (340 pages, $30) - these are the core rules
• False Flag (72 pages, $16.50) - "An expansive sandbox environment covering ive regions of the Northern Wastes and Frozen Gulf, developed to fill 10-15 sessions and designed to permit multiple potential endings"
• Rainmaker (84 pages, $16.50) - "A journey across seven forgotten regions of the Oceanic Rim, designed to fill 10-15 sessions."
• We Were Here First (80 pages, $16.50) - "19 unique areas to explore, designed to fill 10-15 sessions."

• Gaming at Dave and Sophia’s. We finished B10 although I didn’t give Corina and CJr enough screen time.
• Dinner at Premier Pizza. It’s a thick pizza (i.e. lots of bread) but good.

• QB Brock Purdy is back and the 49ers win 41-22 at Arizona.

• Tried Apple’s Digital ID again. Before I wasn’t moving my phone closer and farther enough so that it could find the passport page. This time I realized that my passport photo is me a lot younger without glasses. The Digital ID process requires me to place the phone arms length away and do certain head motions as directed (e.g. turn head right) except that the directions are too far away without glasses so I bring the phone closer to read which then makes it start over.

• When I woke up TP-Link router said Internet connection wasn’t working. Rebooted router, then Fiber ONT. Then tried connecting directly to the ONT and that worked. Then plugged Ethernet back into router and that finally worked.
• DDO Symphony of the Fey starts tomorrow and runs to Feb 03 2026. Kind of like the lantern event they had last year: equip a shield cosmetic, play your lute when you see a sound emote, kill the resulting monsters for lute xp and if you max your late you get a special cosmetic. Guess I’ll try it on hardcore with a new character. I like that in hardcore you can only use equipment dropped in quests otherwise there is big debuff.

• Apple TV will continue hosting Friday Night Baseball through 2028, which is just continuing the contract they agreed to a few years ago.
• C3 Dinner. Pho Little Saigon. I got a pork with vermicelli dish and it also came with two fried egg rolls (meat filled not vegetarian). Was pretty good. $18.

• Godzilla Voxel Wars for free on Epic Games Store today looks a lot like Into the Breach, a game I really liked.

• MechWarrior 5 first DS and I then CSr’s campaign.

$13 Level

+$13 Level

• Saw Tron: Ares with CSr. I liked it. Cool graphics on a big screen.
• Dinner at No.5 House which is soft opening at the corner spot that several other restaurants have died at. They’re only taking half the space so maybe that makes rent manageable. Anyways it’s Chinese comfort food and was pretty good.
• DDO we did the three preliminary Red Fens adventures. I forgot you still only get non-epic upgradeable stuff so next time we can skip Epic. But they are level 21 quests and we’re only level 23.

• 49ers lost at home to LA Rams and are now 6-4 which is not bad considering their many injuries.

• We’re doing bulk pickup which includes one E-Waste item like a computer or monitor. I got rid of my Drobo.

• With iOS 26.1 you can now add your US passport to Apple Wallet. I tried it but the scanner didn’t recognize the photo page so wouldn’t take a picture (there is no button it just does it automatically like a scanner app).

• C3 dinner. Porridge and Things.

• Power outage this morning about 0815 to 0915. Rather stormy this morning.
• Apple TV subscribers will get Major League Soccer games for free in 2026. It’ll be rough if I try watching all the games. Also wondering if they’ll up the cost of Apple TV to compensate.

• Gloomhaven we got an artifact quest done in like 2+ hours going rather slowly. It was get the artifact then get to the exit and it was four rooms including a long hallway so Dave S and I were rather low on cards at the end (and he exhausted).

Plan                                    Reg. Monthly    Adj. Monthly  Yearly Max  Doctors

Blue Shield Bronze 60 HDHP PPO          $1315.17        $142.45       $6650.00    1568   
Anthem Blue Cross Bronze 60 HDHP EPO    $1272.16        $99.44        $6650.00    705    
Kaiser Bronze 60 HDHP HMO               $899.19         $0.00         $6650.00    535    
CCHP Bronze 60 HDHP HMO                 $933.36         $0.00         $6650.00    707    
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
Blue Shield Silver 87 PPO               $1594.26        $421.54       $3000.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
Anthem Blue Cross Silver 87 EPO         $1431.50        $258.78       $3000.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
CCHP Silver 87 HMO                      $1247.69        $74.97        $3000.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
Blue Shield Silver 87 Trio HMO          $1206.44        $33.72        $3000.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
Kaiser Silver 87 HMO                    $1117.97        $0.00         $3000.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
Blue Shield Bronze 60 PPO               $1313.91        $141.19       $8850.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
Anthem Blue Cross Bronze 60 EPO         $1271.18        $98.46        $8850.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
CCHP Bronze 60 HMO                      $926.44         $0.00         $8850.00                                                                                                                                                                                                
Kaiser Bronze 60 HMO                    $930.53         $0.00         $8850.00                                                                                                                                                                                                

• Visiting mom and dad. Commuted there with CSr so he could set up their new PC.
• We went to Golden Hotpot Lounge for lunch. Was a lot of food.
• Won ton soup for dinner.
• DDO. We did Belly of the Beast at Elite. First two VoN at R4.

• Costco Har Gow and Dad’s Jook (rice porridge) for brunch.
• Left at 1130 and got back about 1430.
• Checked Marvel Strike Force alliance and realized pretty much all the regulars left. Deleted the app. I went from level 35 to almost 100 and got about 15 characters to level 85.
• Tried to get Strange Adventures in Infinite Space running. The macOS Lion version just quits so it must be too old. The Windows 98 version I installed on CrossOver and it runs ok occasionally but usually keyboard/mouse is not working and it takes over all the displays.

• Monterra insert reminds me that current 30Y fixed rate home mortgage is 6.375% and even a 5/5 ARM is 5.625% Not as bad as the 1980’s.

• Apple App Store now on the web. Mostly useful to me in that before an app link would go to a page that immediately tries to redirect to App Store App so I tended to avoid posting those links. Now a link goes to a stable web page.
• BTW it’s weird that clicking on the link from Apple Notes goes to App Store app on my Mac rather than going to the web browser. Sometimes Apple tries to be a bit too clever with what they think you want instead of doing the obvious thing that I want.

• Library to get more books.
• Star Smog San Mateo for smog check.
• Trader Joe’s for snacks.
• Dinner at C3’s. Taishoken - Tokyo Classic Aburasoba.

• The rare Apple TV outage (you can check on Apple’s System Status page). It happened just as I stopped one video to start another so I thought it was a problem with my computer.

• MechWarrior 5 with Dave S’s instance. In one missions we stuck around to kill more enemy forces for bonus payment and salvage. But pushed it a bit too far and got two of our Mechs destroyed. I died a few seconds before Dave W got into the pickup zone.

$10 Level

• Bitter Jungle by William Adcock (33pp, retail price $4)
• Bottoms Up! by Rachael B. Randolph (42pp, retail $4)
• Help Wanted by Jo Kreil (27pp, retail $4)
• Second Coming by Gary Sumpter and Rob Malkovich (51pp, retail $4.50)
• Smoke Green by Noah Lloyd (34pp, retail $4)
• Spoiled Milk by Jo Kreil (26pp, retail $2)
• Thunder God's Curse by William Adcock (28pp, retail $4)
• To Touch the Untouchable by Dean Engelhardt (25pp, retail $4)

• The Open Cthulhu Mythos SRD
• Cthulhu Eternal Classical Era SRD (e.g., Ancient Greece and Rome, approximately 500BCE to 500CE)
• Medieval SRD (approximately 800-1300 CE)
• Age of Sail SRD (17th Century)
• Age of Revolutions SRD (1750-1850)
• Victorian Era SRD
• World War I SRD
• Jazz Age SRD
• World War II SRD
• Cold War SRD (mid- to late 20th Century)
• Modern Age SRD
• Future SRD

+$21 Level

• Dead Flowers by Stuart Boon and Dean Engelhardt (46pp, retail price $4): Western Australia, New Year's Eve 1982
• Fathoms Below by Jo Kreil and Dean Engelhardt (31pp, retail $2.50): 1962. A French-led Atlantic expedition (Cold War)
• Known Unknowns by Tristan Goss and Dean Engelhardt (47pp, retail $4): During the Cold War
• Lord of Nombrecht by Thomas Michalski and Dean Engelhardt (50pp, retail $5): In the Holy Roman Empire during the High Middle Ages
• Physiology of Acquired Taste by William Adcock (36pp, retail $4): In 1830 Reims
• Red in Tooth & Claw by Chad Bowser (40pp, retail $4): Australia, 1914
• Starlight on the Gutter by Simon Lee and Dean Engelhardt (50pp, retail $5): London, 1895
• White War by Paul StJohn Mackintosh (14pp, pay what you want): The Italian Alps, December 1916

• Thou Didst Let Fall by Dean Engelhardt and Vian Lawson (45pp, retail price $4)
• The Usurpers by Gary Sumpter (31pp, retail $3)

• Dark Visitations (33pp, retail price $4.50) - Two scenarios
• The House on the Promontory (36pp, retail $3.50)

• Tonight we played DDO. DS was late so the rest of us did 5 Night Revels quests to get the new Sentient Jewel of the Black Abbot (the easiest new item to get). When DS joined we did The Portal Opens at R3 and it was fairly easy.

• 49ers lost and are now 5-3. QB Brock Purdy was injured after the first game or two and it’s been QB Mac Jones doing a competent job.

• Foot started hurting this morning and looks a bit swollen. Will try Advil every 4 hours and no meat today and then see if it’s worse tomorrow.

• macOS Tahoe can’t open my old Official.dmg where I keep sensitive data. It’s a really old DMG format probably. Luckily I still have my Mac mini so I opened it there then copied the contents out and put them in a new disk image.
• Vortex tech came by and replaced our front door’s door closer so that it will now can’t be locked open.

• C3+S dinner. Corina made chili and corn bread, lots of meat so I only had one bowl.

• Couldn’t sleep last night so I stayed up and wrote the operating budget cover letter. Probably not my best work given the lateness of the hour and maybe I should have waited a day and reviewed it again but instead I finished it and sent it to our management company so they can print it out and send it to all owners.

• Gloomhaven. Got a Spellweaver story mission done.

• Vampirella Omnibus v1: The Dynamite Years (OWN) — this is Vampirella (2010) v1 to v3 + Annual 1 & 2
• Vampirella (2019) v2: Seduction of the Innocent — I have v1 from a previous bundle so this is new
• Vampirella: Valentine's Day Special (2021) — new to me

• Vampirella (2019) v1: Seduction of the Innocent (OWN) — as I mentioned I have this
• Vampirella: Mindwarp #1 — of a 5-issue mini-series
• Vampirella: Fairy Tales
• Vampirella vs Reanimator #1 (OWN) — this is part of a 4-issue mini-series
• Vampirella vs Dracula #3-6 (OWN)

• Vampirella vs Dracula #1-2 (OWN)
• Vampirella (2010) #1-11 (OWN) - these issues already included in Omnibus v1, what a rip-off
• Vampirella (2014) v1: Our Lady of Shadows (OWN)
• Vampirella (2017) v1: Forbidden Fruit (OWN)
• Vampirella Strikes (OWN)
• Vampirella: Southern Gothic
• Vampirella and the Scarlet Legion (OWN)
• Vampirella: Prelude to Shadows (OWN) — prelude to Vampirella (2014) v1: Our Lady of Shadows
• Vampirella: Masters Series v3 to v8 (OWN 4 of 6) — Don't know why v1 and v2 not in this bundle, then again a previous bundle only included 5 of the 8 volumes
• Vampirella: Feary Tales
• Vampirella Archives v3 and v4 (OWN) — again mystifying why v1 and v2 not in this bundle
• Vampirella 1969 (OWN)
• Vampirella (2016) Hollywood Horror #1-6 (OWN)
• Vampirella (2019) #1 (OWN) — already included in Vampirella (2019) v1: Seduction of the Innocent
• Vampi Omnibus v1
• Legenderry Vampirella v1 (OWN)

• Vampirella: Masters Series v5 & v7
• Vampirella: Feary Tales

• Last night we played Gloomhaven and got one scenario in. It was a survive 10 turns in a medium-sized room scenario with lots of spirits but CSr got out a volcano ally with ranged retaliation 2 and killed most of them while three of us had healing to keep it alive.
• Tonight was DDO and we tried Belly of the Beast which you have to run along an acid river and swim in acid and damage amazing a lot. We couldn’t quite do it at R2 so we’ll try again at R1 or Elite.

• MLS Playoffs will be free for Apple TV subscribers. Last year it was “rest of the season and playoffs free” which meant you could go back a month and watch games you couldn’t watch before. That was a lot of MLS watching for me so this year it’s more reasonable.

• Received my notice that I am no longer in Medi-Cal but still qualify for Covered California and have until Nov 30 to enroll.
• GM Daniel Naroditsky died yesterday. Sad news.

• Designers & Dragons: Origins BackerKit ends Nov 20. It’s $200 for physical copies (4 hardcover books + slipcase). $80 for PDF + at-cost PODs if you want printed. Looking at other DTRPG products I’m guessing at-cost POD HC about $50 each, at-cost softcover color about $35 each. In the end no savings if you want print.
• Vortex’s bill for last Oct 06 visit is $563 for preventive maintenance on the door closer. Which they did do not exactly with my permission. At least we know that PMs are expensive and probably not worth it as replacing the door closer is like two PM visits. It does make me not want to use Vortex any longer since R&S Erection seems to do the same jobs well enough at cheaper prices.

• C3+S Dinner. We got delivery from Golden Wok. Cheap but tasty Chinese comfort food.

• Steph extended Netflix for another month. CSr said she wanted to watch a show coming out this month, though hopefully a show that drops all its episodes at once.

• Got a call and someone leaving a voicemail. On my Mac it showed a popup and live translation of the voicemail being left. Very cool. Phone still in sleep mode so it didn’t even ring. BTW was a spam call.

• DDO. We did two quests. House of Broken Chains at R3 and died a lot. Almost TPK’d in the last room though there’s a resurrection shrine you can run to if you were running out of the room when you died (or maybe even in the room).

• Took a shower. Went to Popeyes for chicken (it’s been almost six months so my reward points were going to expire). Lucky’s for a few things — it’s quite a bit more expensive than Safeway though that’s not cheap either nowadays.

• Stormy day. A couple of brief power outages.
• Went over reserve study, deferred a bunch of stuff, fixed some numbers. Working with our RS company to update it.

• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow released on Steam. This is the old version I guess with a few fixes to make it run on current Windows 10/11 and has not on Steam before (the other games are already on Steam). I have the other games (on Steam) and will probably buy this ($6 on sale) to complete the set.
• A few seconds power outage at 16:29.

• I did no coffee over the weekend and now I’m trying out two mugs in the morning, no coffee after 1500 to see if I can sleep better. Last night Nemo streamed from Beijing midnight to 0400 which is why I went to sleep late.

• Shannon’s next series of books launching on BackerKit next week. Designers & Dragons: Origins.

• Apple is the Exclusive New Broadcast Partner for Formula 1 in the U.S. All content available with regular Apple TV subscription and some content free for everyone. F1 is like one race every other week so not a huge time commitment.

• Pendragon Boxed Set - I think like for CoC reprint box is 2" deep to accommodate the extra stuff in this KS.
• Nobles Book - supplement
• The Grey Knight - campaign
• Tournament of Dreams - book with two adventures
• The Pendragon Campaign - 76-page version, the 5E version is 430 pages so it's grown tremendously

Adventures

Mini-Adventures (individual encounters, each 2 pages)

Mini-Supplements (2 to 4 pages each, some are mini-adventures)

This is pretty much everything in the 2E line except

• Gloomhaven -CSr. Turns out Beast Tyrant (which we’ve never played before) causes our game to lock up — after choosing cards and then starting the turn it shows initiatives at the top but not the monster initiative cards. It’s not locked up as you can move around the board and examine figures but after a few minutes it still didn’t show initiative cards. We tried it a couple of times (each of us hosted once) and tried it with a simpler scenario (the one we were playing had like a dozen figures at start).

• DDO. Playing Saltmarsh on R1 with lvl 6 characters and it’s a bit tough. I should play older lvl 3 quests as they tend to be scaled for PCs with less cool equipment.

• Vortex came by this morning to take a look at our front door. We want it to not have a mode where it can be locked open but instead door closer will always try to close door. Tech said that is not a setting and instead requires a new door closer, but we just replaced this one a few weeks ago. They’ll send us a quote and I guess we can discuss in next HOA meeting. Issue is that often (usually carelessly) leave the door locked open which then becomes a security concern.

• Vortex work summary emailed to me. I guess since they didn’t actually do anything they had to do something so the techs oiled the door closer and I guess we’ll get charged for that. Also their estimate came in for a new door closer, it’s $1300

• RapidWeaver Classic crashes after global search results populate. Maybe that’s why it crashed earlier this week though I didn’t notice what I was doing. For now I can use BBEdit for global searches.

• Conference call with Stifel where we keep our HOA reserve funds. This is the other advisor linked to our account and he was a bit more explicit that it wasn’t convenient for Stifel to keep us around since we only buy CDs. And this time Marcyl on the call so she also convinced (before when she talked to the first advisor he either didn’t indicate that or she missed it). So now we need to look at where we should park our reserve funds.

• MW5 with DS hosting. We did four or five scenarios — they run quickly, about 10 minutes each, with another 10m or so doing upkeep and deciding what to do next.

• Watch
• Current: Apple Watch Series 7, 45mm (Jul 2022) [$394 including tax]
• Current Replacement: Apple Watch SE3, 44mm (2025) [$279 + tax, about $307, no AppleCare]
• Here we go for cheapest Apple Watch which at this point is fairly good.
• Phone
• Current: iPhone SE 3rd gen (replaced Dec 2024) [$615 with AppleCare and tax]
• Current Replacement: iPhone 16e, 128 GB (2025) [$599 + tax, about $659, no AppleCare]
• Again cheapest replacement since even that is fairly good.
• Tablet
• Current: iPad Pro 10.5", 256 GB (Sep 2017) [$1202 with tax]
• Current Replacement: iPad mini (2024) + Smart Folio [$558 + tax, about $614, no AppleCare]
• Alternate: iPad Air 11" 128 GB (2025) + Magic Keyboard [$868 + tax, about $955, no AppleCare]
• A smaller iPad would be nice which means a mini, but an Mx also nice so that an Air.
• Computer
• Current: MacBook Pro 14" M4 Pro, 24/512 (Nov 2024), 4 TB external SSD [$2235 with tax no AppleCare]
• Current Replacement: (Same) [$1999 + tax, about $2199, no AppleCare]
• M5 Macs coming out soon but for now I'm happy with my current MBP so I'd replace with same. I suspect M5 would not be much of an upgrade.

• 2026 - replace iPad
• 2028 - replace Apple Watch
• 2030 - replace iPhone
• 2032 - replace MBP

• Ex-WCBS Lunch at Harborview Restaurant where we’ve gone the last few times. We did have more people possibly showing up but then Greg W was a bit too ill (apparently his health is bad and he’s in a wheelchair) and a couple of others had to back out. Sort of the usual four with Jesse, Lonnie, Peter and myself. Lonnie and his wife went on a 111-day cruise around the world and he would not recommend as it got boring.
• Tonight we played DDO. For now each weekend we’ll do one night of DDO and one night of a different game.

• We are having an election in November just for Proposition 50 which will do legislative (instead of independent) mid-census (redistricting is done after every census) redistricting to win more Democratic Party representatives in the House of Representatives. This is to counteract Texas doing mid-census redistricting to do the same for Republican Party. I guess most telling is I’ve seen lots of ads anti Prop 50 and I’m rather leery when he political money is all on one side.

• Realized that with my MBP M4 I can play two DDO instances fairly well — with my old MBP Intel the second instance running would make the first instance somewhat laggy. Reincarnated my alt character and will play with two characters at R1 and kind of depend on my main having three allies to carry him on quests.

• Did my OS upgrades: macOS 26.0.1, iOS 26.0.1 and my old iPad has a 16.x upgrade. I’m indifferent about Liquid Glass. I suspect it looks better with a high density display. I use an external cheap monitor and although my iPhone SE3 is Retina it’s a small screen.

• C3+S dinner. Got delivery from La Petite Camille. CSr and I talked about the various BattleTech systems. MechWarrior Destiny RPG has a fairly cut-down version of BT but you still have 1/4-sized Mech sheets. There’s also a good fan mod that adds a few things to Destiny (e.g. rear armor).

• After a couple of days with iOS 26 I change my mind and Liquid Glass looks nice on my iPhone SE3. I changed the background to Earth closeup which I think works better with the Liquid Glass app folders.

• DDO tonight since CSr is camping tomorrow. We did a couple of the City of Portals arc at R3.

$15 Tier

$31 Tier

• Gaming at Dave and Sophia’s. CSr was sick and Corina busy so C3 didn’t come. Sophia was also late playing badminton. It was mostly Dave S and I. Dave W took a nap and we occupied Jonathan though he mostly watched videos and rolled dice.
• Dinner at Gourmet House.
• MW5. Since CSr was out Dave S hosted with his company (there is no shared campaign like with Gloomhaven where anyone who played in the last session has access to the latest save file and can host the next session — I guess that means save files are kept local to each player). Another three or four missions and I used a Centurion. We did a two-part contract and in this case you don’t get to repair between missions but you can switch out Mechs. In any case we were down to three Mechs in a defense mission, Dave S and I got our Mechs destroyed and it was up to Dave W to take on the final bad guy and he managed to win.

• One thing I’ve noticed is that Tubi is a bit sneaky. If you’ve paused for a while then resume playback it’ll soon go to ad break. Don’t really blame them since if you’ve gone away then returned and started watching again you are more likely to sit through the ads.

• Worked on the HOA operating budget spreadsheet and sent it out for board review before Thursday’s meeting.

• I think I figured out my old Ooma Telo device. After a power outage it has rapid blinking yellow light and won’t connect. I tried unplugging and replugging Ethernet and power but doesn’t help. If I unplug both for a day and then plug back in that seems to work.
• But I guess in any case I should start changing my contact number to my iPhone. Because eventually the Ooma will die and I don’t want to buy a new one and keep paying $7 a month for a service rarely used.

• C3+S Dinner. We got delivery from Totoro Ramen. Cjr is going an overnight camping trip on Friday. CSr is still a bit sick.

• HOA Meeting. We got operating budget approved though took some convincing of our president Roger B. No matter the budget or special assessment he wants to reduce the financial burden a little which does add up over the years to a fairly good $100k+ over budget in the last six years. This time the budget committee convinced him to let it be $865 per month dues, about 7-1/2 percent increase.

• We played MW5 with CSr hosting. DW came online, when I said we were playing MW5 he said something about game rotation and I said I didn’t care and then he logged off. I don’t feel bad about it. I really wanted to play MW5 and tonight did not feel like catering to passive-aggressive behavior.

$5 Level

$15 Level

$25 Level

Minimum Retirement Age

• Dark Ages Core Rulebook - 244 pages hardcover in their standard "digest-plus size" format.
• Dark Ages Graphic Novel (Merlin's Champions) - 96 page hardcover
• Dark Ages Accessories Box - Action Cards, Bennies, Status Tokens, Pawns (standup), GM Screen, Poster Map, 3D Terrain
• Dark Ages Cursed Village - more terrain, enough for a village
• Savage Worlds Player's Book (with Exclusive Cover!) - same Player's Book but with a Dark Ages cover
• Dark Ages Premium Conviction Dice (Set of Six Metal d6's)
• Excalibur Foil Stamped Item Card

• Gloomhaven (no CSr). We did an artifact adventure and got a cool ring of shield 4. As good as a tower shield without the negatives and only takes a misc item slot. We revealed a new class which has a bear that does all his fighting and has cards that helps summons so pairs well with CSr’s summoner.

• NFL week 1. 49ers barely win at Seattle.

• Spent the day doing my notes for tomorrow’s budget meeting.

• HOA Budget Committee meeting. We went through the budget but not the reserve study. Lots of questions I need to research for follow up meeting next week Thursday.

• After reporting a really good quarter Oracle stocks jumped about $100.
• C3+S Dinner. Leftovers: chicken burrito, steamed buns, French fries.

• Helping unit 108 find out if they can rent the place. Mom came over yesterday and today. CC&Rs say 18 units max can be rentals but our management company keeps track of that. Finally talked to our manager who when she got back to office checked and currently we’re at 16 units so should be ok.
• BTW Davis-Stirling Civil Code § 4740 says that owners have to report renter to HOA.

• Woke up early to move the car because we’re power washing garage.
• Since Wednesday Oracle stock down about 40 to $292.
• DDO with CSr and DW. We did The Underlane Assignment at R6 and died 6 times.

• better noise cancellation
• Live Translation: automatically translates incoming audio, when you speak your iPhone shows text translation
• redesigned shape, five tip sizes
• IP57 sweat and water resistance
• heart rate sensing during workout
• workout tracking without Apple Watch
• 8 hours with Active Noise Cancellation
• 10 hours as a hearing aid

• 2x more scratch resistant
• 5G cellular modem
• detect hypertension
• Sleep Score
• 24 hours battery life
• $400

• S10 chip
• always-on display
• gestures
• wrist temperature sensing
• sleep apnea notifications and sleep score
• 18 hour battery life
• fast charging
• $250

• brighter display, wider viewing angle
• satellite connectivity
• emergency SOS free for 2 years
• 42 hours battery life
• $800

• 6.3" display, ProMotion (up to 120Hz refresh rate), alway-on display at 1 Hz, 3000 nits peak outdoor brightness
• Ceramic Shield 2 - 3x better scratch resistance
• A19 Apple Silicon - 6-core CPU (2 performance, 4 efficiency), 5-core GPU, 20% faster than A18
• All day battery life
• 48MP Fusion Ultra-wide camera (24MP default for everyday photos) + 12MP telephoto (2x optical)/macro camera
• Center Stage front camera, square sensor, 18MP
• $800 for 256 GB storage (iPhone 16e is $600)

• 5.6mm, 6.5" display (same stats as iPhone 17), Ceramic Shield 2, Titanium body (80% recycled)
• A19 Pro - 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU
• N1 wireless chip, C1X modem
• 48MP Fusion camera combined with 12MP 2x Telephoto camera (only one camera)
• 18MP Center Stage front camera
• Dual Capture video (records front and rear camera at same time)
• eSim-only
• All-day battery
• Accessories: low-profile MagSafe battery, translucent case, bumper case, Crossbody Strap
• $1000 for 256 GB storage

• Vapor chamber for better heat dissipation.
• Aluminum unibody, 20x greater thermal dissipation than Titanium.
• A19 Pro with 6-core CPU (2 performance/4 efficiency), 6-core GPU
• 39 hours video playback
• 18MP Center Stage front camera
• Three 48MP rear cameras (ultra-wide, telephoto, main camera)
• Telephoto: 12MP with 8x zoom, 40x digital zoom
• Video: ProRes RAW capture for professional filming
• Genlock for video synchronization when using multiple cameras
• 6.3" 256 GB storage for $100, 6.9" 256 GB storage for $1200 (Pro Max up to 2TB storage)

• DDO during three-day weekend. We did Lords of Dust chain to get to Eveningstar then Impossible Demands in King’s Forest.
• CSr, Dave S and I all have MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. Dave W seems reluctant. It’s hard to tell if it’s he doesn’t want to spend any money (it’s $12 on sale), or doesn’t like GOG (it’s now on sale on Steam), or doesn’t want to play the game at all. Also he didn’t bring up any objections when we were talking about it or when I bought it and talked about it (and I wouldn’t have minded him saying he didn’t want to play it after I bought it). So hard to tell with him when something is a hard no until he starts complaining weeks or months later.

• Visiting parents today and tomorrow. Steak dinner, won ton soup the next day.
• CSr helped mom buy a new computer from Costco, one that can run Windows 11. It has a 512 GB SSD and she doesn’t use that much hard drive space though maybe he can move the 2 TB HDD to the new computer. Not sure when it’ll be delivered.

• Drove back home. Listened to some Miley Cyrus though less memorable songs than I remember. Then switched to Melissa Etheridge’s Yes I Am and lots of bangers there — I love that album.

• Divine Right X: The Omega Expansion KS. You can get Divine Right 2P (reprint with corrections as part of the KS), Divine Right X (boxed set expansion as big as the main game), Battle of Shrieker’s Scrub (a standalone 1h war game in the Divine Right universe), Divine Right neoprene map. $250 + $15 shipping in USA. I am very tempted but have until Sep 20 to decide.

• Received ATO Annual 2023 - La Bataille de Kulm.

• When I was at my parents last I used my MBP monitor and realized it does look nice and a bit less eye straining. Maybe this year I’ll buy an Apple Studio Display, at $1600 (+ tax) a bit expensive but monitors last years. It’s a 27” so as big as my current main display.

• Frak. I hate that Apple Numbers allows me a lot of Undos but then no Redos — sometimes you can Redo and others times not. I use Undos if I deleted data I want back — I go undo then copy the data then redo back to current state and paste data. This time I undid a bunch of stuff it won’t let me redo so now I’ll have to fix it as I come across the old data. This is probably because it’s an iCloud document.
• Deadlands: Dark Ages KS launching in a few days. From the blurb it seems like King Arthur + Mythos. Right now not sure if I'll buy it.

• blog/podcast (none) - doesn't seem to have it built-in nor any integration
• search (medium) - keyword or phrase, or matching (they have AI search for paid version; though results don't show context
• diagrams (none) - diagrams.net you just paste in the URL but I guess then it's a diagram saved externally.
• version history and diff (some) - there is version history but not sure there's diff

• Divine Right 2P - reprint of last year's game with rules and counter corrections
• Divine Right neoprene game map - although the game already comes with a mounted map it's in 8 sections so I can see why one big neoprene map would be nice
• Battles of Divine Right: Shrieker's Scrub - a standalone $25 1-hour tactical war game on one hard mounted map board and 64 counters
• Divine Right X: The Omega Expansion - the big new thing is a boxed expansion of advanced rules rather than the Scarlet Empire expansion mentioned in the first KS. 300-page rulebook and guide, 200+ cards, 2 counter sheets plus other stuff. I guess this rulebook would replace the original rulebook and would have made it Divine Right 2E if that's the path they had wanted to go.

• Gaming at C3’s place. Got two hours done. Dinner at Superstar Dim Sum and Seafood Restaurant. Mango birthday cake for Jonathan’s birthday (which is on Wednesday).
• A bit of discussion about what game to replace Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. I favor MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries when it comes on sale.
• DDO: We did The Claw of Vulkoor (21) at R5 and lots and lots of dying. Scorpions are surprisingly tough.

• Saw that MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries and all DLCs are 60% off on GOG until Wed morning. Bought the base game, installed and played it a couple of hours. Did get fairly nauseous at the end. Only host needs to buy DLCs and I figure by the time we’re done with main content one of us can but the DLC pack.

• Called my Stifle account manager. Left a message.

• Called my Stifle account manager and left another message.

• Called Stifle account manager and left a message. Have been calling at 2 PM or later. If I can wake up early maybe I’ll catch him.

• Called Bob at Stifel again and left a message. This time at 1230 which I think is the earliest I’ve called.
• HOA Meeting. Went well I think.
• Finally decided to mute our building WhatsApp channel. There’s the one guy who’s talkative and negative all the time which gets kind of depressing. But just in general it’s become a bad news channel and an example of why unmoderated social media is not mentally healthy.

• Called Stifle again about 1315.
• Went through and checked beneficiaries. Didn’t have it set of HSA and a HYSA and my oldest 401K only had my brother not my sister.

1. Blog and Podcast with RSS feeds
2. Search: show surrounding context of found search terms; search operators an extra plus
3. Diagrams or other built in drawing
4. Version history and diff

• blog/podcast (none) - Blog feature is planned though I guess it's been marked planned for 6 years.
• search (basic)
• diagrams (high)
• version history and diff (high).

• Blog/podcast (none) - shelves+books model means a blog/podcast doesn't make sense so I guess won't be added. There is a simple rss feed hack (which are third-party created customizations to BookStack).
• Diagrams (high) - uses diagrams.net which is the same as for Wiki.js. I guess one thing to mention is that Wiki.js only supports diagrams in Markup pages not Rich Text pages, which doesn't bother me much since all my pages are done in Markup.
• Search (basic) - seems the same as Wiki.js in that it only returns page titles. Though it does have an advanced search with more options (though I wouldn't call it advanced, more like basic plus or medium).
• Version history and diff (low) - has version history and you can click each version to see changes. Wiki.js has a cool diff UI where yo can click click click and rapidly see changes between one of the last few versions (B) and any version (A)

• Fire alarm from a unit in the 3rd floor. The units themselves I’m not sure can trigger the building alarm. But the kitchen connects to the interior hallway so burning food and turning on the fan spews fumes in the hallway and the building alarm will then go off.

• Last night we played Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Got three or four side quests done. At midnight I kind of stopped and the other guys did a long hour-long side quest while I was just at the start soaking up XP.

• Deposit cash. Once again ATM refuses one of the bills. Sometimes they’re finicky.
• Safeway for Rice-a-roni. Flavored rice is nice as an occasional thing.
• Gas up car at Exxon because Apple Card promotion of 5% cash back instead of 2.5%. Probably not worth it.
• Trader Joe’s for milk, lemonade (love lemonade because so much flavor even when watered way down but kind of low in vitamin C which worries me so I sometimes get orange juice), potatoes (don’t eat potatoes that much but a nice alternative to rice and pasta), avocados and potato chips.

• Apple still hasn’t charged my CC from an Aug 20 in-app purchase. I remember they would wait a few days before charging a CC to gang up charges and reduce CC fees (which are a high percentage of costs when most purchases are $1 or $2 in-app fees). But over a week seems too long. Anyway I guess I won’t be buying the other Resident Evil full-game unlocks.
• Noticed DriveThruComics now shows a few recommended buys when you start checkout. Annoying and don’t see a way to turn it off in account settings.

• C3+S dinner. We had leftovers which is fine since they often have a lot and they’re aggressive about throwing away old food.
• Dave S came over as he’s helping CSr set up new security cameras which requires a bit of electrical work. We went to Home Depot a couple of times.

• Leagues Cup Elimination Round. 4 MLS vs 4 Liga teams and MLS wins all four games so it’ll be US teams in spots #1 to #4.

• 11 days later Apple finally charged my credit card for Resident Evil 2 full unlock. Unfortunately RE sale is over but I guess they’ll do the sale again since they did it before and next time I’ll buy earlier and maybe get two purchases done.
• This also means I’m not sure about doing any purchases until Sep 01 since it might be charged this month. Too uncertain to purchase on an Apple online store if I want to get exactly 10 credit card purchases for the month.
• We finally finished Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, though of course now we can play it again at a harder mode with up gunned characters.

RapidWeaver Classic Features I'd Lose

RapidWeaver Features I Don't Care About

Cool Wiki.js Features

• Sonic Mobile apps is nice in that if you get a phone call it’ll ring like a phone. But if it’s in the background too long I guess iOS kills its connection so it’ll send a notification asking you to open the app. Since I never really get phone calls it does get annoying so I’ll turn notifications off for that app.
• Last night and tonight we played DDO with the old party where CSr and DW and I each play two characters. We did Legendary Peril of the Planar Eyes at R5/R6 and did the first two Soul Splitter at R6. I forgot how good we are with these characters. At R6 still mostly easy though Soul Splitter 1 (Finding Dorris) we lost all three primary characters. That quest has constrained spaces and we weren’t as familiar with it as others.

• Bought macOS Resident Evil 2 full unlock ($10) on sale. Hopefully will do a couple more before the sale ends Aug 21.

• Fidelity guys finally caught me as I answered the phone before checking who it was. I politely declined their financial advice service. Mostly because I don’t have the flexibility to do anything. 401K has limited choices which leaves my regular stocks of which I don’t have much of and need to keep selling anyways.

• Peninsula Health Care District has a pilot in my area code and I received a Deterra bag. Put your expired drugs in, half fill with water, close pouch and dispose in trash. Pretty neat and I do have a lot of expired drugs though the pouch is only good for 45 pills so I guess dispose of the most dangerous ones — I think I still have codeine from when I got a tooth pulled several years ago.
• Reading the FAQ there are also locations to drop off expired medications for disposal.

• Went to dentist for cleaning.
• Stopped by Trader Joe’s for milk and orange juice.
• Stopped at Monterra to deposit cash. It rejected one bill. I’d guess it rejects less than 5% of bills which I have a small pile of and someday will deposit manually.
• Dinner at C3’s. Joy Sushi and I got a bento box with salmon teriyaki and California roll.

• AT&T Customer Data Security Breach Class Action Settlement. Filled out the form. If you have documented loss (which I guess would be insurance claim or police report) then you can get up to $2500. Otherwise you get a share of whatever is left over. Nice payment options including PayPal and Venmo, though I’ll settle for paper check to avoid PayPal fees for what will be a small amount of money and I don’t want to hand over my ACH details.
• A second class action, this one is for Capital One 360 Savings. I guess they were paying less interest rate than they claimed. This one strongly recommends using electronic payment as paper check payments less than $5 will not be sent and your payment is forfeited. This one I’ll use PayPal and we’ll see what happens.

• CB got laid off (today I think). Sucks but she’s a PE (Professional Engineer) so can probably get another job easily.
• Too many Windows 10 updates so we played Gloomhaven. I switched character to the bard.

• Gaming at Sophia and Woo’s (D&D Session 26). Woke up early to feed cat. Couldn’t get back to sleep. Was a bit punchy. We did get almost 4 hours of gaming though it was mostly Dave S doing stuff.
• Group dinner at Dave’s Hot Chicken because that’s where Jonathan wanted to go. Unimpressed.

• Even after 8 hours of sleep (with a break in between to feed cat) I was still tired all day.

• Recovering sleep.
• Need to check if I still have Medi-Cal or not.
• Vaults of Vaarn 2E Backerkit. “Vaarn is a science-fantasy tabletop RPG setting…It draws inspiration from novels such as Dune, Hyperion, The Book of the New Sun, and the graphic works of Moebius.” 1E was being released in ‘zine form and I have the first three (of four) issues, although it looks like issue 4 is not part of 2E as it was set outside Vaarn. It uses its own system based on Knave and it is £18 PDF. Probably won’t buy it.

• Spent an hour trying to find out if my BenefitsCal change of income was reviewed since I expect to lose Medi-Cal. Went to CoveredCA where you can also report income change so I did it there. A bit of a confusing system. In any case if I go to CoveredCA it won’t let me apply for anything else until the change of income is reviewed. Guess I’ll give them a day to process (which admittedly would be really fast for government) and call them Thursday.
• Actually the CoveredCA home page says go to BenefitsCal to speed up process which I guess is why I submitted my change there in the first place. Don’t quite remember.

• Stayed up late enough that easier to stay up another hour or two then feed the cat an early breakfast.
• C3+S dinner. Leftovers.
• Went to see The Fantastic Four: First Steps with CSr.
• RapidWeaver Elements 1.0 released from RealMac — I use their RapidWeaver Classic product. It’s been around for a couple of years as a paid beta. I don’t care enough about a fancy and interactive web site to switch over. In fact a wiki is probably what I’ve wanted all along except that wikis imply a database which must also be maintained which is why I haven’t ever fully committed to putting my web site in a wiki.

• Leagues Cup (between the US MLS and Mexico Liga) phase 1 ends Saturday. In phase 1 everyone plays three games then it’s back to regular league play. The best four teams in each league advance to phase 2 maybe in a couple of weeks or next month. Kind of nice because all these games I get behind on watching so with this format no chance of me accidentally seeing who advanced (which happened last year) before I’ve finished watching phase 1 games.

• Toyota Walnut Creek for car service. $524.
• Breakfast at Buttercup a few minutes walk away. Eggs Benedict with Pastrami, Hashbrowns, Cherry Pie, Coffee. $40.
• When I went to feed unit 317 cat he hadn’t eaten breakfast. Turns out the guest there hasn’t seen the cat all day. Hope it didn’t escape and run away. Anyway guest said he’ll call unit 317 owner in case he knows cat hide somewhere special.

$18 Level

+$17 Level

Other Expanse Products Not in Bundle

• Gloomhaven with DS and DW. We finished the last quest and did another one. Both for the Brute and I guess we should concentrate on finishing out the Level 9 characters as that’s the max level.

• Nemo in Riyadh for Esports World Cup doing content. She streamed at 2000 local which is 1000 here and I happened to be awake. Because of heat EWC is more of an evening to very late evening event so I expect streams will start 1000 or later my time so I need to get up early-ish this week.

• American Express web login is a little annoying because it wants to verify on you iOS App by default and I don’t see a way to change it. I’ll try deleting the app on my iPhone and iPad.
• Finally used my Nordstrom’s gift card (received it Jan 01 2024). XL Ralph Lauren t-shirts and underwear for $98 (with tax and free 2-day shipping). Let’s see if it fits and if so maybe I’ll buy more before their sale ends August 03.

• I’ll be looking after unit 317’s cat for about 10 days. Cat will live there and I need to go give it breakfast and dinner.

• First day looking after unit 317’s cat. Went there and gave Banksy his dinner (dry food) and cleaned litter box.
• Mac App Store versions of Resident Evil are on sale: 2 ($10, 67% off), 3 ($10, 75% off), 4 ($20, 67% off), 7 biohazard ($8, 60% off), Village ($10, 75% off) are on sale. They all require M1 processors so I assume they use Apple Metal graphics.

• Tried the pool thermometer and when I put it in pool (upside down so the water flows in) and waited temperature didn’t seem to change. Checked it after a few hours still the same. Took it home and used warm water and it did register the 90 degree temperature and as the water cooled it slowly went down so I guess it does work. Will try again tomorrow.
• Vortex tech came by at 0930 and the front door closer (of the door that has the key lock, which is the door used all the time) is leaking so he had to go back to the warehouse to get a replacement and then replaced it and was done by 1330. He also fixed an issue where the other door’s bottom lock wasn’t engaging and screwed in the loose base plate (that keeps the door from swinging inwards).

• Darn. I switched Twitch payment to Apple Card so I could buy 100k bits and then forgot to change it back so my three subscriptions re-subbed using Apple Card rather than my credit union.

• DDO Started my alt account first character transfer so it also transfers account info. After a few hours it’s still going (in the background so I don’t need to keep app going).
• CSr skipped as he and family have a flight at 0600.
• DS, DW and I played Gloomhaven.

• Test character didn’t transfer. In the evening I started it again. Maybe somehow I cancelled the previous transfer.

• Checked this morning and my DDO character transferred.

• Stayed up late watching Apple Music videos and listening to songs.
• Video call between HOA board and our reserve study analyst.

• Went to 99 Ranch in Foster City. First time there. Bought some tofu and some packs of ma po tofu sauce.
• Visited Lima for half an hour.
• Used one of the ma po tofu packs with a pack of tofu and it came out pretty good mixed with corn and over rice.

• HOA Meeting went well. I need to check the BBQs as apparently not working. Hopefully something simple like out of propane since I don’t really know how to use a BBQ.

• DDO: Finished transferring my 12 alt account characters to Thrane and re-organizing extra items.
• Oops. Thought C3+S were flying back tonight but read the calendar wrong. They’re flying back tomorrow night. Since I thought they were coming tonight I didn’t visit Lima.
• DS, DW and I played a bit of Gloomhaven. Half of one scenario and then DW disconnected and it was after midnight so we ended and will continue tomorrow.
• Apparently I didn’t create any main account characters on other servers. I guess I remember just making characters with my alt but I thought I had made at least one with my main.
• Took me the better part of a week to transfer my alt characters and about two hours to transfer my main characters now that the transfer rush is over. Mind you for the latter I didn’t reorganize anything which took the better part of an hour for each character transferred and most of that time was juggling stuff around when you only have 60-odd free spaces in share bank.

• #01: The Pod-Caverns of the Sinister Shroom ($8, 16 pages)
• #02: The Red Mausoleum ($8, 16 pages)
• #03: The Curse of the Witch Head ($8, 12 pages)
• #04: Prison of Meneptah ($8, 32 pages)
• #05: The Flaming Footprints of Jilanth ($8)
• #06: The Chasm of the Damned ($8, 20 pages)
• #07: The Sarcophagus Legion ($8, 16 pages)
• #08: The Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar ($8, 12 pages)
• #09: The Lost Pyramid of Imhotep ($8, 12 pages)
• #10: The Lost Keys of Solitude ($8, 28 pages)
• Malevolent & Benign I ($10, 128 pages) - 150+ monsters from various sources including Advanced Adventures
• OSRIC (free, 404 pages)

• #11: The Conqueror Worm
• #12: The Barrow Mound of Gravemoor
• #13: White Dragon Run
• #14: The Verdant Vault of Malakum
• #15: Stonesky Delve
• #16: Under Shattered Mountain
• #17: The Frozen Wave Satsuma
• #18: The Forsaken Sepulcher
• #19: The Secret of the Callair Hills
• #20: The Riddle of Anadi
• #21: The Obsidian Sands of Syncrates
• #22: Stonepick Crossing
• #23: Down the Shadowvein
• #24: The Mouth of the Shadowvein
• #25: Beneath the Heart of Empire
• #26: The Witch Mounds
• #27: The Bitterroot Briar
• #28: Redtooth Ridge
• #29: The Doom of Red Rauthim
• #30: To End the Rising
• #31: The Lost Lair of Drecallis
• #32: The Palace Beyond
• #33: The Halls of Lidless Shabbath
• #34: The Crocodile's Tear
• #35: The Desert Shrine of the Sightless Sisters
• #36: Aerie of the Cloud Giant Strategos
• #37: Under Ruined Onm
• #38: White Dragon Run II
• #39: The Dark Tower of Arcma
• #40: The Horror of Merehurst
• #41: The Forgotten Grottoes of the Sea Lords
• #42: Dead in the Water
• #43 The Warrens of Zagash
• Malevolent & Benign II ($10, 110 pages) - 150+ monsters from Advanced Adventures and original ones

• We went to Aunt Julie’s memorial service at United Methodist Church where she worshipped and was an active member.
• Then there was a reception at LogOff Brewing.
• Came home and CSr and I went to watch Superman (2025).
• Dinner with parents (Dad made roast chicken but cooked like roast duck including sauce).
• Then drive home and I slept a lot.
• DDO we did Epic Partycrashers then Dave W helped Dave S clean up his inventory since he doesn’t have a shared bank but has some character bank to offload stuff. Also he had some bad equipment which should have been switched out long ago. It helped he could stream on Discord so we could see his setup.

• Got a chance to watch Murderbot 1.10. Unexpected change of tone from beginning to end and an ending where all other characters can be jettisoned (which is I think what happened as books 2 and 3 are Murderbot on his own).

• Watching The K2 on Tubi and actually a very good show. All of a sudden maybe Tubi has better Asian dramas than Prime Video and definitely better video quality and less commercials than Viki (though more commercials than Prime Video).

• Time to start getting a Budget Committee ready and work on the Operating Budget and Reserve Study. Last year I wanted to start closer to April since forming a Committee takes a couple of months, but always had something else to do. Still, I think we’re a month earlier than last year so maybe won’t end up finishing in mid December like last year.

• C3+S dinner. We ordered from Hummus Mediterranean Kitchen and it was good. Had some of the leftover hummus with pita and it was quite tasty — better than I expected but I guess that’s fresh hummus vs store bought.

• DriveThruRPG Christmas in July Sale. I already bought my 10 debit card purchases so may try to buy two or three things morning of August 1st just before the sale ends.
• Dave W moved our DDO guild to Thrane I was doing some quests and when I tried to go back to guild base it said I wasn’t in a guild.

• We played a bit of Gloomhaven since we’re busy transferring DDO characters to Thrane.

• Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One (own on GOG) - Eye of the Beholder, EotB 2: The Legend of Darkmoon, EotB 3: Assault on Myth Drannor
• Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Two (own on GOG) - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Hillsfar, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures
• Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Three (own on GOG) - Dungeon Hack (explore randomly generated dungeons), Menzoberranzan,
• Silver Box Classics - Heroes of the Lance, Dragons of Flame, War of the Lance, Shadow Sorcerer
• Dungeons & Dragons: Krynn Series (own on GOG) - Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, The Dark Queen of Krynn
• Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun Series (own on GOG) - Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, Dark Suns: Wake of the Ravager
• Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft Series (own on GOG) - Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, Ravenloft: Stone Prophet
• Fantasy Empires - single-player 4X game
• Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace
• Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (own on GOG)
• Dungeons & Dragons - Stronghold: Kingdom Simulator (own on GOG)
• Dragonstrike - flying dragon combat simulator
• Deathkeep - a plain go-into-dungeon-and-kill-things Wizardry-style game

• Foot feels as good as yesterday maybe better. Still swollen but I think safe to eat that last third of chicken thigh.

• Last day of Nemo’s 100 hour streamathon. Three active moderators and we’re all tired.

• Foot feels pretty good. Maybe a little swollen but hard to tell — it is discolored darker. Went to the library and Trader Joe’s and walked ok although a bit of discomfort in my ankle. Had another 1/3rd piece of chicken thigh and a bit of canned salmon. Hopefully I can increase it a bit in a day or two.

• Foot is pretty much normal now.

• Dinner at C3’s. Totoro Ramen and got the curry ramen (has chicken katsu). Ate a bit of the katsu and saved the rest.

• Watched Murderbot 1.9. Eager for the last episode to be released tomorrow.

• Got a hair cut. Tomorrow going to Aunt Julie’s memorial service with CSr so wanted to look ok.
• Then went to Mi Rancho for chicharrones, instant coffee, and some pastries ($25).
• After dinner, went with CSr to mom and dad’s.

• MacWhisper’s last update added Nvidia’s Parakeet model. Transcribing three VODs totaling 9h 8m took 9-1/2 minutes for about 57.7x speed and normally would have taken more than hour. Transcription seems accurate too.

• Checked for Electron apps I have: find /Applications -name '*.asar' -print. It is OpenVPN and Discord.

• Ate a chicken thigh yesterday. Foot hurts today. Why is meat so yummy?
• Today still had a bit of protean — half a can of salmon, less than 4 oz.
• Actually what hurts most is my left foot achilles area. Feels very stiff and flexing it at all hurts. I can clomp around but maybe that’s doing damage.

• Foot getting worse? No meat today.

• Foot walkable but maybe getting worse slowly. Ate like 1/4 can of salmon with my meal. I’m really not setup for vegetarian. Should get some veggie pizzas; tofu and sauces (black bean or ma po tofu). Unfortunately can’t walk enough to do that.
• Nemo’s 100 hour streamathon started at 1400 PDT.
• Just realized that Silo — which I’ve often thought is a show where the unlit areas are so dark I can barely tell what’s going on watching on my iPad — is actually lit well enough on my Mac monitor that it doesn’t bother me. Most of my Apple TV+ non-sports watching is on my iPad so I hadn’t noticed it was different.
• ORCL is up to $229.98. So even after selling $50k worth (at the time) my individual stocks (the ones I can sell as everything else is 401k or Roth IRA) are worth $329k and previous high was $313k. If all it does is be stable at this price for a year I’ll be happy.

• Can walk about 80% of normal speed with a little discomfort and limp.
• Ate about 1/3rd of a chicken thigh tonight. Hope I don’t pay for it in the morning.
• More about DDO 32-bit to 64-bit migration. All accounts will (automatically) get 10 more character slots (too bad I bought some in the last sale). All accounts will get (via coupon code) 100 shared bank slots (which makes up for the extraneous character slots).

• MacWhisper with Parakeet v2 working on a 20 GB video file (26+ hours) and it’s using 33 GB memory (My MBP M4 Pro has 24 GB memory). 17 GB swap used after I quit all other apps. Is it loading the whole video file? I thought it would just load the audio.
• Splitting it up into 6 to 8 hour segments — used VLC to export audio then Audacity to split it up — and MacWhisper tops out at about 8 GB memory. And it’s a lot faster — even taking into account the time to do audio export and splits — because going into so much swap space killed the transcription speed.
• Foot felt fine today, or at least good enough I think could go grocery shopping. Had another 1/3rd of the chicken thigh for dinner.

• Foot still slightly swollen.
• Apparently the USA used B2s to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites. Stock market may be down tomorrow so good thing I sold some ORCL stock when I did.

• Gaming at Woo’s place. Corina and Cjr were not there. Conversely Sophia and Jonathan made a few combat rolls.

• Foot is 98% fine. Slightly swollen still but doesn’t bother me at all. Haven’t tried running or anything strenuous.

• I tried several online QR code decoders and QR Code Raptor allowed me to drag and drop an image and decoded it correctly.

• C3 Dinner (Corina at work). Kajiken Nikumori Aburasoba which is their #1 dish and it’s good so I should stick with it. Have tried one or two other dishes there and wasn’t impressed.
• DDO Expansions Sale: 30% off Magic of Myth Drannor (this is the last released expansion and largest discount so far); 50% Vecna Unleased (same as for last Black Friday), 85% Fables of the Feywild (most ever); 85% DDO Expansion Trove (same as Black Friday 2023)

• HOA Meeting. I have a lot of TODOs.

• Foot hurts like it might swell up tomorrow. Still slightly swollen. Guess I started eating meat a bit too soon though was cutting it down to one piece a day instead of two.
• Comcast now offering unlimited data plans. For less money than current plans. And existing customers aren’t automatically updated to the new plans cause Comast doesn’t really care once you’re a customer hence a big reason why I stopped using Comcast when my building got Sonic as an alternative.
• YouTube Live popout chat can’t click and do mod commands. I assume it’s a temporary bug… I see now you have to click the three dots on the right to get that menu.

• A bit gross but finally took a shower after two weeks (13 days). Probably could have done it a few days ago though iffy with my foot. Today I felt I could stand steady in the shower.
• Foot still getting better. Swelling definitely less now. Still can’t walk great. Going out to dinner tonight so we’ll see if I can wear shoes ok.
• Oops, parents coming over tomorrow. Hopefully foot swelling keeps going down.
• An ongoing problem with Apple TV+ Friday Night Baseball is, at least when I watch the VOD, sometimes for the whole broadcast the announcer/commentator voices are low compared to field sounds so it’s hard to tell what they’re saying. And I for one would rather have clear commentator voices than clear field level noises.

• Mom and dad came to C3’s place and Steph made dinner for Father’s Day— braised chicken legs in mushroom sauce with sliced carrots. Got a lot of food from mom and dad. Will take them to SFO airport tomorrow morning.
• Foot was not too bad today and getting better. Can put it in my shoe and walk around although a little pain.

• Woke up early to drive mom and dad to SFO. They're on a United Airlines flight to London.
• Stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home.
• Hobbling around but doable. Once I got home my foot hurt enough I rested it for half an hour and it felt better.

• Woken up to help the county pool inspector get into the pool pump room which has a lock on it. Took a few minutes and a couple of phone calls to figure it out. The lock numbers need to line up to the top row not the middle row like most locks (or I suppose we could note to try a number that will cause the right number to line up in the top row).
• Walking around in my shoe is still a little painful but less than yesterday as my foot is also less swollen.
• Adobe has a free online utility to convert a PDF to Word doc. I used it to convert last year’s Summer Rules so I could make some edits. After importing to Apple Pages it wasn’t perfect and I ended up creating a new doc and copy/pasting the graphic and text (with lots of bullet sections). Then more editing. But a lot easier to recreate the same look and feel -- I can copy/paste from PDF itself but it’s mostly plain text (e.g. bullet lists don’t transfer).

• Foot feels pretty good. Can walk at almost normal speed. Foot a little swollen. Toe is a bit tender if I try to put weight on it.

• Submitted stock sale to BenefitsCal.com. Not the easiest interface and I had to settle for Other Income.

• Foot slightly swollen but now feels 95%

• Took an Advil about 2000 before I went to see Lima. Then went to sleep. Woke at 0430 and foot in pain unless I had to in a specific position. Took another Advil and got back to sleep. About noon now and foot not too bad though still swollen.
• Got notification that my resting heart rate has been noticeably higher for 5 days which tracks with my foot issue.
• Noticed that Monterra Credit Union added 2FA option for authentication apps. Unlike every other site I’ve set this up on Monterra does not give you backup/emergency codes so I am leery to turn off SMS as a backup.

• Last night we did another Gloomhaven scenario (minus CSr). Reward was a Cloak that if used you take 3 damage and get +1 Attack for attack action, great for my arrow storm.
• Foot has been not pained today. Took an Advil last night but not today. Can walk around slowly and it’s not painful. Still swollen. Hope that tomorrow will be even better.
• Music app still hadn’t uploaded the last D&D podcast file (iCloud status = waiting). I re-authorized my computer which then said I should turn off/on syncing. After doing that eventually it did upload the file.

• Viewing WWDC 25 Keynote in macOS Developer app. Not a great experience. Default windows has small video screen. You can make it full screen but then I can’t take notes. You can popup and make it bigger (up to video original size, not unlimited) but there is only pause/play control, can’t go forward or back.
• It’d be nice if Shortcuts ran in the background instead of bringing up the Shortcuts app to the foreground then running. This behavior is common to all Apple OSes.
• Playing DDO Keep on the Borderlands. For my campaign I was copying the dialog by hand. Forgot that the dialog is written in the General Log so I could have copy/pasted from there and saved lots of time.
• Foot was sore but not really hurting. Didn’t have to take an Advil last night nor today.

• Foot was hurting a bit last night. Today so far not so much. Still swollen. No Advil last night or today.

• Can walk without pain, though not fast. Foot maybe a little less swollen. Standing up to eat lunch was pretty much fine. Even yesterday it was painful standing more than a couple of minutes.

• Oracle announced their earnings and stock jumped from $176.38 to $199.86. This time I really need to sell a bunch.
• Foot is a bit better. Maybe a hint of pain at the base of my toe when I flex it. Still swollen, maybe less than yesterday. Still wouldn’t want to walk more than a couple of minutes.

• Maybe walked/stood a bit too much yesterday as my left foot might is a little more sore. Swelling went down a little.
• Stock sold for $202 which is nice. Often it sells for less than you think. Even though stock price is now $215 that is fine as I have other stock so selling “too soon” not an issue.

$10 Base Level

+$10 Level Up

• We played Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Started next chapter, The Son of a Witch, so I guess we’ll play it through before switching. I got separated from the others and did a side quest I think. Pretty nice in that it involved fighting flying wyrms but there was enough overhead cover (caves or tunnels) that I could pop out and back in and eventually got through most of it before the other guys caught up (they ended up high above me on a mountain but apparently a dead end so they jumped down to join me. It was nice having some time to myself.
• Checking my investments, in total back to about a level of last November. Still like 10% down from the Dec 01 2024 high.

• Left foot is hurting a bit. Once again base pad of the toe hurts if I flex it. Can still walk around ok.

• Foot bothering me a bit more today. Walked to front door to check something and walked back, about a couple of hundred feet. Bit painful.
• Looked it up and last time that it lasted more than a few days was Feb 2024. Had a scare in May 2024 but it was only a couple of days. And that time it was right foot. This time it’s left foot.
• Did a load of dishwasher and this time leaked a couple of cups of water which I mostly caught in a bucket. So a large tray should be able to catch almost all the water. Haven’t tested to see where leak is coming from so that I can maybe seal it with duct tape.

• Took me two or three hours to get to sleep foot was hurting quite a bit. I forgot that it hurts more when it’s elevated (i.e. when I’m lying down in bed). Taking an Advil helped.
• Left foot noticeably swollen.
• In the D&D campaign there was a question if the horses the PCs bought back were taken to the ranch or to the final selling place. I looked at the MacWhisper transcript: “She'll deliver them back to the horse ranch. She's not gonna deliver all the way to where you're supposed to go in the first place.” It’s not that easy to read so not sure if I change my mind later on.
• Had to put up a flyer in the front elevator. Used my old crutches (works fine though the rubber is dry and flaking away so eventually no padding will make it more painful to use). Took me like 10 minutes to hobble around the building and back and was fairly sweaty and tired by then.

• No C3 dinner because my foot hurting. They’re leaving this Friday to visit Corina’s sister’s family in North Carolina. I’m supposed to bring in the garbage, packages and pet Lima. Hopefully I’ll be able to do it.

• Foot still hurting. Hard to tell if it’s getting better since I took an Advil at noon and 6 PM.

• Today my foot didn’t hurt so bad and could hobble about a bit better without using Advil. At 2100 went to C3’s house to bring the garbage bins and pet Lima. Wasn’t too bad walking though standing in one place more than half a minute was painful.
• Gloomhaven with DS and DW since C3 is in North Carolina visiting.

• Gaming at Dave and Sophia’s place. Got a couple of hours done though we started very late. Just didn’t find a time when they weren’t talking to start the session.
• We played DDO last night and tonight. Since DW blew up we’ll continue playing I think at least until we’re level 20.

• Drove to mom and dad’s for Memorial Day weekend though just today and tomorrow. Took my car and left a bit late so got there after lunch. Dad made tallerin verde for dinner with breaded chicken (pounded flat then breaded and fried).
• We played Gloomhaven because I forgot my external HD but CSr brought an extra gaming laptop.

• Loaded with a lot of food drove home. I left like an hour after the others, I think around 1600, but not too bad traffic.

• The only thing I miss with DuckDuckGo browser is integration with Apple Passwords. You can import those passwords into DDG but after that it’s not synced. Passwords has a browser extension you can install but not for DDG. Otherwise, considering it’s based on Safari engine it’s a fairly nice browser which I use to keep my Twitch modding separate from my regular web sites.

• C3+S dinner. Costco chicken, tortillas and hot sauce. Not bad.

• There was a NOWN workshop on landscaping contracts but I missed it. Luckily Keystone (our management company) now put the Zoom videos on YouTube.

• Bought Sixth World Shadows bundle of holding.
• We played DDO and got to level 20, finishing Sharn. So now we’ll take a break and do another game.

• Bought Against the Darkmaster Bundle. At first glance layout and art and look are all quite polished.

• Going to move my Twitch subscriptions to first of month and use my checking account debit card (for the 10 debit card uses per month requirement). Too bad there’s no easy way to do this though I guess every subscription service is like that except maybe American Express where you can change the billing date.

• Bought Treasures of the Troll King for Mörk Borg at $4 (60% discount). At least one review said this is an ok adventure for MB and I guess I’d agree that MB adventures can be heavy on layout/graphic design and one good idea but lacking in organization and adventure design.
• Apple released iPadOS 17.7.8 so hopefully will be able to play STFC on my iPad.

• So hard falling asleep last night so I finished watching the last two episodes of Netflix before the subscription expires.

• C3+S Dinner. Porridge and Things. CSr forgot to add an extra serving of porridge so a bit sad but I had some and it was tasty as always. I got the sausage fried rice and CSr also got beef chow fun. And there was gai lan for vegetable dish.

• macOS Sequoia 15.5 released. After the last iPadOS update issue I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks and mark it in my calendar as a reminder.

• I had this 1024-piece puzzle almost 40% done and then got on a roll and spent 6 hours last night finishing it. Total time 13 hours. I’m not playing this game again. The dopamine as you add each piece is too addicting.
• Ooh, another month of Netflix. Clashes a bit with last month of Disney+.